MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. VOLUME II. LONDON PBINTED'BY WILLIAM CLOVES AND SO>S, STAMFORD STREIT AM) CIIARINC CROSS. WI I.I.I A M 1IAZ I, ITT MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM HAZLITT. WITH PORTIONS OF HIS CORRESPONDENCE. BY W. CARE W HAZLITT, OF THE INNER TEMPLE, B ARRISTER- AT-I A W. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. " Quidquid ex Agricola aniavimus, quidquid mirati sumus, manet mansurum- que est in aniinis honiinum, in seternitate temporum, fama rerum. Nam multos veterum, velut inglorios et ignobiles, oblivio obruet. Agricola, posteritati nar- ratns et traditus, superstes erit." — Tacitus, in Vita Agricolce. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, |1ttblis^r in ©riunarg ta Utr $Itsj*stg. 1867. 73 MEMOIRS, &o. Book II. — Continued. CHAPTER I. 1821. Specimens of Mr. Hazlitt's correspondence — Letters from various persons — Publications of the year. By some extraordinary casualty a few of the letteas addressed to Mr. Hazlitt in one particular year, 1821, have escaped the destruction which has been almost the invariable fate of this class of papers in his case. I could desire that those which we still have were more important, but their scarcity must be my apology for inserting them. I regard them as salvage from the waste-basket. The first is from New York, and introduces Mr. Greenhow. It also forwards for Mr. Hazlitt's acceptance a portion of the liver of a departed dramatic celebrity, George Cooke. _ " Dear Sir, "I trust time has not entirely erased my name from the tablet of your memory, and that you will pardon a moment's intrusion. VOL. II. B kJu.< i 2 A VISITOR FROM NEW YORK. " Mr. Greenhow, the gentleman who will present this, is a warm admirer of your talents ; and finding occasion to brave the world of waters which lie between thisvi continent and the emporium of learning and genius, wished an opportunity of seeing you. I have therefore taken the liberty of introducing him, in the hope of double gratification. lie is a gentleman of good mind, extensive reading, and well acquainted with the history and all particulars relative to this country. He is, too, a profound lover of the drama; he will be happy to inform you of its state in this country — which with other matter may while (sic) away an hour — and per- chance amuse you. Your society and converse will on his part be highly valued. I learn that poor ' Ogilvie ' has passed that ' bourne whence no traveller returns ' — his troubled spirit now finds rest. In the confidence that you do not think me presuming, and that your literary labour may ever be crowned by a golden har- vest, I remain, yours with great respect, " R. C. Maywood. •• Xew York. April 29th, 1821. " W. Hazlitt, Esq., London. "P.S. I feel assured that any part of so great a being as George Cooke will be esteemed a curiosity, and richly valued. The bearer of this will offer a morsel of the liver of this wondrous man. — I!." The next which presents itself is a communication from Canterbury,' from Mr. Pittman, urging my grand- AN INVITATION FROM CANTERBURY. 6 father to come down to the racket-court there, and try his hand. Mr. Hazlitt was very attached to rackets and fives, and seems to have been a very fair player : — [July 16, 1821.] " In the old palace of King Ethelbert, in the ancient monastery of St. Augustine are — two Kacket- Players ! who have found the true city of God, the court in respect whereof St. James's with the approaching ceremony is nought. A massy stone wall of thirteen hundred years' duration, even as a board placed by the hand of modern art, fair and smooth as Belphoebe's forehead, forms its point. No holes or crannies throw out the well-directed ball. No jutting rocks or pendent precipices spoil the hit and the temper. All is smooth. Eleven yards from each other are two abutments, round which monks formerly prayed or seemed to pray, and courtiers lied, and seemed to speak the truth. These bound the court, and form delicious side walls ; but alas ! they terminate abruptly before they have proceeded five yards. Endless, however, is the variety these quickly- ending walls occasion. Of chalky foundation, firm, even, and hard is the ground ; eighty-six feet in length, ever widening as it recedes from the wall. Close behind the court, but not too close, and down a slight descent, is a large square bowling-green, encompassed by old cloister walls covered with vines and trees, and edged with flowers of all sorts, the rose being one. Immense arches, ivy-covered towers, time mutilated, at magnifi- cent distances — the house itself, like one of those chapels 1 A TEMPTING TICTURE. which we see adjoining cathedrals — all show the real forte of a monk to have been architecture, not divinity. The keep, the straggling abutments, all, all deolare that— The way they still remembered, of King Nine, Of old Assaracus and Inachus divine. But nothing gloomy, all cheerful, lively, pleasing, gay. In spot more delicious, though but feigned, Long or Joe Davis never played, or Spines Or Hazlitt vollied. " The inhabitants are not altogether unworthy of the place. For country people they are excellent. Kacket is a great humanizer of the species, and ought to be en- eourag< d. Tonbridge is decent, Cooper hath a heart, And Austin ale, the which he will impart With liberal hand to all who pay. " They are, in fact, very civil. Our coming has revived the game, stirred up the ashes of a cheerful fire, inspirited the players. Many matches are in embryo, and the coronation is forgotten. "Many Margate, Eamsgate, and Dover coaches go from the Bricklayers' Arms at a quarter before eight every morning — and all through Canterbury, to which the fare on the outside is only 14s. "Do come. You never saw so pretty a place. It beats Netley Abbey, and is older. The court is really admirable, and has the property of drying in two hours after the longest succession of hard rains. Good chalk has no fellow. The only false hops are in the beer, A BUSINESS LETTER. O which is damnable ; everything else is fair. Do come, and inquire for ' John Austin, at The Old Palace ;' he is our landlord, where we have bed and board, and he keeps the court. That ever I should live in a Fives Court ! Come, and you will see fine play from " Yours very truly, " Thomas Pittman. " One of the old racket-players here says : ' Jack Davis was the finest player I ever saw ; and, by God, there is nobody can come near him.' " William. Hazlitt, Esq., " No. 9, Southampton Buildings, " Chancery Lane, London." Here is a note from Mr. Colburn about ' Table Talk,' of which a volume was to come out on June 1st, if pos- sible. That it should, was very important : — " Dear Sir, " I send herewith all the 2nd vol., except the end of the 16th essay on the ' Fear of Death.' We want one essay yet to make out the volume of a tolerable size — which one it is desirable to bring in before the present 16th. Let me beg you will send me presently one of the essays you mentioned as being just ready, other- wise I shall not be able to publish by the 1st June, which is very important. ' " Yours truly, " H. Colburn." [1821] G LETTERS FROM MR. BALDWIN. I follow up with a series of notes from Mr. Baldwin, the publisher, respecting the ' London Magazine.' " My dear Sir, " I must not any longer neglect to avail myself of your kind offer to assist in filling up the chasm, made by the death of our lamented friend,* in the Magazine ; and I know not any subject which would be thought more interesting than a continuation of the living authors, nor any pen so fitted for the subject as yours. Pray select any one you may think most fit, and render us your powerful assistance towards making our next num- ber equal to its predecessors. " In a day or two I shall probably request an interview with (you) on the subject of an editor. " I am always, my dear Sir, " Most faithfully yours, " Egbert Baldwin. " P. N. Row, " March 5th, 1821. " William Hazlitt, Esq., " 9, Southampton Buildings." " My dear Sir, " The portion of your capital article on Mr. Crabbe, which I enclose herewith, will, if inserted as it now stands, place us in a very awkward dilemma. Mr. Croly had communicated some articles during Mr. * Mr. John Scott. MR. BALDWIN IN A DILEMMA. 7 Scott's life, which he highly valued, and he is likely now to become a more frequent correspondent. There is also an article prepared on his second part of Paris for the present number, which will not altogether harmonize with your remarks in the paper on Crabbe. All this I should not so much care for, if it were not that the series of 'Living Authors ' ought to be as from the editor, not from a casual correspondent, and ought not, therefore, to want harmony with other parts of the Magazine. " Now I think the difficulty may be easily got over by omitting Croly's name, and contrasting the poetry of Crabbe with that of another school. Almost every line, except the first three or four, may then be retained, and instead of ringing the change on Crabbe and Croly, it will be he and they. Indeed this is done at the bottom of page six. Thus we shall avoid personality, yet hit the mark. " Wishing to make this article the first of the number, I have given the rest to the compositors, but I do not venture to make myself, or suffer any other person to make the desired alteration. " I remain, my dear Sir, " Most faithfully yours, "Robert Baldwin. " P. K". Row, " April 17, 1821. f William Hazlitt, Esq." 8 MR. IIAZLITT AND THE 'LONDON MAGAZINE. " P. N. Row, May 9, 1821. "My dear Sir, " The arrangement with Messrs. Taylor and Hessey is completed, and Mr. Taylor will take an early oppor- tunity of calling on you, unless you should think proper to look in upon them in a day or two. I sincerely hope that such an arrangement will be made as shall be quite satisfactory to yourself; I am sure it is to their interest that it should be so. I should have much at heart the welfare of the Magazine, even if we had no pecuniary interest remaining; but upon their success depends greatly the sale of a considerable quantity of back stock, and of course we shall do all in our power to promote that success. " You will have the kindness to send me the article on Pope at your earliest convenience. " I am, my dear Sir, " Very faithfully yours, " Eobert Baldwin. " William Hazlitt, Esq., " Southampton Buildings." Mr. Hessey 's letter does not divulge what the business was on which Mr. Hazlitt and he were to confer, but it illustrates the obsolete usage of authors going to their booksellers, and discussing matters comfortably over tea and toast : — "My dear Sir, " Mr. Taylor was all this morning on the point of setting out to call upon you, as he wanted much to have some conversation with you, but a constant succession MR. HAZLITT AND THE ' LONDON MAGAZINE.' 9 of callers-in prevented him. Will you do us the favour to take your breakfast with us in the morning, between nine and ten, when we shall have a chance of being un- interrupted for an hour or two. '•' Believe me, dear Sir, " Yours very sincerely, " J. A. Hessey. " Fleet Street, May 29th. "W. Hazlitt, Esq., " 9, Southampton Buildings." " My dear Sir, " The enclosed cheque is made out, deducting the discount (21. 10s. Qd.), on 70?. If there is any part of that time expired, we shall be your debtors for the difference. " I am, my dear Sir, " Yours very truly, " John Taylor. " Fleet Street, 23rd Jidy, 1821. "Wm. Hazlitt, Esq., " 9 Southampton Buddings." Mr. Landseer probably overrated a little Mr. Hazlitt's influence with the ' London Magazine,' when he wrote the note with which I must conclude my specimens:* — * But I suspect that at one moment there was some arrange- ment contemplated by which Mr. Hazlitt would have taken the management of the L. M. Several passages in these letters point to this, and can refer to nothing else. But that he ever actually officiated as editor is more than I have been able to learn. Mr. Landseer evidently had reason to suppose his influence there was considerable. ll» NOTE FROM MB. LANDSEEB. "33, Foley Street, Tuesday evening. •• Deab Sib, •• 1 wish you would be at the trouble of informing in-', by post, if my letters can not appear In your next magazine — thai is to sav — as soon as you get another from Mr. Baldwin. I have this additional reason for wishing to know soon, that perhaps now, while there arc no parliamentary debates, I might be aide to get them into a morning paper in case Mr. 15. should decline them. "Yours, clear Sir, " Very sincerely, "J. Landseeb, " Mr. Hazlitt, " 9, Southampton Buildings." The volume of ' Table Talk,' reprinted from the 'London Magazine,' with some additions, was published by Mr. Colburn in 1821. The dramatic criticisms, which Mr. Hazlitt had contributed between 1814 and and 1S17 to the Morning Chronicle and other journals, were at last collected into a volume this year, under the title of 'A View of the English Stage.' The last article is a notice of Mr. Kemble's retirement, June 25, 1817. 11 CHAPTER II. 1821-1822. Domestic incompatibilities — Advice to a Schoolboy. " I want an eye to cheer me, a band to guide me, a breast to lean on ; all which I sball never have, but shall stagger into my grave without them, old before my time, unloved and unlovely, unless . I would have some creature love me before I die. Oh ! for the part- ing hand to ease the fall !" The passage above cited is in the autograph MS. of an 'Essay on the Fear of Death,' written in 1S21, but it was omitted in the printed version in 'Table Talk.' "How few," he says again, "out of the infinite number that marry and are given in marriage, wed with those they would prefer to all the world ; nay, how far the greater proportion are joined together by mere motives of convenience, accident, recommendation of friends ; or, indeed, not unfrequently by the very fear of the event, by repugnance, and a sort of fatal fascination " These lines came about the same period from the same pen and the same heart. My grandfather had L2 Do MIS TIC MATTERS. been united to IM iss Stoddart for thirteen years; but the marriage, as I had as well confess at once, was not a happy one. I should even go so far as to say that li>- had his individual ease and fate in view, where he speaks of marriages being brought about sometimes •• by repugnance and a sort of fatal fascination." Never. I suppose, was there a worse-assorted pair than my grandfather and grandmother. If they had not happened to marry, if they had continued to meet at the Lambs', as of old, or at her brother's, they would have remained probably the best of friends. She would have appreciated hitter his attainments and genius ; while in her, as Miss Stoddart, or as the wife of anybody else but himself, he would have admired and recognized many of the qualities which endeared to him the society and conversation of Mrs. Montagu. Mrs. Hazlitt was capitally read, talked well, and was one of the best letter-writers of her time. She was a true wife to William Hazlitt, and a fond mother to the only child she was able to rear ; but there was a sheer want of cordial sympathy from the first set-out. They married after studying each other's characters very little, and observing very little how far their tempers were likely to harmonize ; or, more properly speaking, how far his was likely to harmonize with any woman's, or hers with any man's. She might have been a blue-stocking, if she could have set the right value on her husband's talents, and entered into his feelings ; she might have been un- domestie, if she had been more like his Madonna. But, M I S S U A I LT () N DOMESTIC MATTERS. 1 n unluckily for them both, she was intellectual, without reverence for his gifts ; and homely, without any of those graces and accomplishments which reconcile men to their homes. I believe that Mr. Hazlitt was physically incapable of fixing his affection upon a single object, no matter what it might be, so that it was but one. He might worship Miss Eailton, or Miss Wordsworth (if De Quinceyis to be believed), or anybody else in his mind's eye, but not in his body's eye, which was at all events as potent an organ. He comprehended the worth of constancy, fidelity, chastity, and all other virtues as well as most men, and could have written upon them better than most ; but a sinister influence or agency was almost perpetually present, thwarting and clouding a superb understanding — that singular voluptuousness of temperament, which we find at the root of much that he offended against heaven and earth in, as well as of many of the fine things we owe to his pen. Mr. Hazlitt's moral constitution supplies, or seems to supply, an illustration of the differences between the two words sensuous7iess and sensuality. He was not a sensualist, but he was a man of sensuous temperament. A sensualist is a person in whom the animal appetite obscures and deadens all loftier and purer instincts. In the sensuous man an intense appreciation of the beautiful in Nature and Art is associated and intimately blended with those potent instincts which endanger virtue. 1 1 MISS WINDHAM OF NORMAN COl RT. Hi- wife had noi much pretence for quarrelling with him on the ground of former attachments of his -till lingering in his thoughts, and kei ping his affection in a state of tangle; for she, too, had had her little Love affairs, and accepted him only when her other suitors broke faith. But in truth, she was no1 the sort of woman to be jealous; it was ool her " way of looking at things," as .Alary Lamb used to say of her. She used, however, to tax him from time to time with having had a sweetness once for Sally Shepherd. Who Sally Shepherd was, is more than I can tell, unless she was a daughter of Dr. Shepherd of (Jateacre, whose portrait he painted in 1803. There was 31 i-s E&ailton, too, of whom enough has been said; but upon the whole I do not believe that this disappointment preyed so heavily on his spirits as some other, the history of which is wanting. It was before his final settlement at Winteralow that he became in some manner acquainted with the Windhams of Norman Court, near Salisbury. It was the lion. Charles Windham who lived there at that time, with an only daughter, who was his heiress. This lady was very handsome, but pitted with the small-; ox. A lady said to him once, without special reference to Miss W., that it was a terrible disfigure- ment — Hie small-pox. But lie thought not. He said that he Looked at the question with the eye of a painter, who could admire the roughnesses in the Lines of a picture. The most beautiful woman he ever knew, he added, was so marked ; and he lowered MISS WINDHAM OF NORMAN COURT. 15 his voice to a whisper, as he finished with — Miss Windham. The family, it seems, were unfavourable to any closer intimacy, whatever the lady's inclination may have been, and Miss Windham was married, I believe, to the late Charles Baring Wall, Esq., M.P., who inherited through his wife Norman Court and the Windham property. How little this excellent and amiable man understood mv grandfather's character may be inferred from the circumstance that he once, with the kindest meaning in the world, offered to place at Mr. Hazlitt's free and entire disposal an apartment or two at Norman Court. The offer, as it may be supposed, was not accepted. But ever after he was accustomed to eye wistfully those woods of Tuderley, and thus once he invoked them : — "Ye woods, that crown the clear lone brow of Norman Court, why do I revisit ye so oft, and feel a soothing consciousness of your presence, but that your high tops, waving in the wind, recal to me the hours and years that are for ever fled ; that ye renew in ceaseless murniurs the story of long-cherished hopes and bitter disappointment ; that in your solitudes and tangled wilds I can wander and lose myself, as I wander on and am lost h\ the solitude of my own heart ; and that, as your rustling branches give the loud blast to the waste below, borne on the thoughts of other years, I can look down with patient anguish at the cheerless desolation which I feel within ! Without that face, pale as the primrose, with hyacinthine locks, L6 ADVICE TO A SCHOOLBOY. for ever shunning and for ever haunting me, mocking my waking thoughts as in a dream; without that smile, which my heart could never turn to scorn; without those eyes, dark with their own lustre, still Lent on mine and drawing the soul into their liquid mazes like a sea of love; without that name, trembling in fancy's car; without that form, gliding before me like Oread or Dryad in fabled groves, what should I do? how pass away the listless, leaden-footed hours? Then wave, wave on, ye woods of Tuderley, and lift your high tops in the air; my sighs and vows, uttered by your mystic voice, breathe into me my former being, and enable me to bear the thing I am " Both Mr. and Mrs. Hazlitt remained tenderly devoted to their little son. It was a trait in their characters which must always be admired ; it was a feature in my grandfather's which excited even the applause of Mr. Hay don. " The child was often a peacemaker between his parents when some unhappy difference arose; and when it came to Mr. Hazlitt frequently taking up his residence, after 1819, at Winterslow Hut, my father usually spent part of his time with one, and part with the other. In 1822 he was put to school at a Mr. Dawson's, in Hunter Strqet, London ; and it was just before he was going to start for this new scene that my grandfather addressed to him the 'Advice to a Schoolboy,' a letter full of admirable suggestion and counsel, and strongly stamped with that impress of the writer's personal sentiments and sufferings ADVICE TO A SCHOOLBOY. 17 which has individualized so large a proportion of his works. In this letter to a boy of ten, he speaks at the circumstances by which he was surrounded at the moment, and points obliquely to his own frustrated hopes — of the hopes which he nourished in his " sub- lime " youth, of happiness with a Railton, or a Words- worth, or a Windham, or a Shepherd. He savs : — " If you ever marry, I would wish you to marry the woman you like. Do not be guided by the recommend- ation of friends. Nothing will atone for or overcome an original distaste. It will only increase from intimacy ; and if you are to live separate, it is better not to come together. There is no use in dragging a chain through life, unless it binds one to the object we love. Choose a mistress from among your equals. You will be able to understand her character better, and she will be more likely to understand yours. Those in an inferior station to yourself will doubt your good intentions, and misapprehend your plainest expressions. All that you swear is to them a riddle or downright nonsense. You cannot by possibility translate your thoughts into their dialect. They will be ignorant of the meaning of half you say, and laugh at the rest. As mistresses, they will have no sympathy with you; and as wives, you can have none with them. " Women care nothing about poets, or philosophers, or politicians. They go by a maD's looks and manner. Richardson calls them ' an eye-judging sex ;' and 1 VOL. II. C 18 ADVICE TO HIS SON. am sure ho knew more about them than I can pretend to do. If you run away with a pedantic notion that they care a pin's point about your head or your heart, you will repent it too late." He was afraid that he might be taken from the little fellow, and that he might be left alone in the world. " As my health is so indifferent, and I may not be with you long, I wish to leave you some advice (the best I can) for your conduct in life, both that it may be of use to you, and as something to remember me by. I may at least be able to caution you against my own errors, if nothing else." He wished him to know what he knew, and to learn what he had learned, that there might be no " bar of separation between them." "I would have you, as I said, make yourself master of French, because you may find it of use in the commerce of life ; and I would have you learn Latin, partly because I learnt it myself, and I would not have you without any of the advantages or sources of knowledge that I possessed — it would be a bar of separation between us — and secondly, because there is an atmosphere round this sort of classical ground to which that of actual life is gross and vulgar." He used to give his little boy money when he went away in the morning, to spend while ho was away. The great hall at York Street was his playground ; and on these occasions a rather promiscuous circle of ac- quaintances from the neighbourhood used to be invited in to assist in the outlay of the silver, which papa had given with a strict injunction, like the old French ADVICE TO HIS SON. 19 gentleman in the story-book, that it should be gone before he came back — a bidding which Mr. W. H. jun., with the help of his young friends, executed as a rule without difficulty. My grandfather wished his son to grow up with generous notions, and this was the way, in his opinion, to set about inculcating the principle and feeling upon his mind. He thought of his own failures in painting, but the art was still as dear to him as ever. He desired to see his son select that calling which he himself had re- nounced, not without many pangs ; and he depicted to him the charms of an artist's life, and then set before him the pleasures of an artist's old age. " Yet if I were to name one pursuit rather than another, I should wish you to be a good painter, if such a thing could be hoped. I have failed in this myself, and should wish you to be able to do what I have not — to paint like Claude, or Eembrandtj or Guido, or Vandyke, if it were possible. Artists, I think, who have succeeded in their chief object, live to be old, and are agreeable old men. Their minds keep alive to the last. Cosway's spirits never flagged till after ninety ; and Nollekens, though nearly blind, passed all his mornings in giving directions about some group or bust in his workshop. You have seen Mr. Northcote, that delightful specimen of the last age. With what avidity he takes up his pencil, or lays it down again to talk of numberless things ! His eye has not lost its lustre, nor ' paled its ineffectual fire.' His body is a shadow : he himself is a pure spirit. There is a kind of immortality about this 20 ADVICE TO HIS SON. sort of ideal and visionary existence that dallies with Fate and bafll<\s tin* grim monster, Death. If I thought you could make as clever an artist, and arrive at such an agreeable old age as Mr. Northcote, I should declare at once for your devoting yourself to this enchanting profession ; and in that reliance, should feel less regret at some of my own disappointments, and little anxiety on your account !" I have said enough to make it clear that the relations between Mr. Hazlitt and his wife were far from satisfac- tory about 1821. But it was not the want of harmony in their characters and dispositions alone which pro- duced this unfortunate approach to a breach, and threatened a severance of the mutual tie. Another agency of a very extraordinary nature, to which I now advert with reluctance, had been for some time past at work. 21 CHAPTER ni. 1821-1822. Mr. Walker, tailor and lodging-house keeper, 9, Southampton Buildings — His daughter Sarah — History of the ' Liber Amoris' — Correspondence with Patmore and K — Mrs. Hazlitt's diary. In the year 1820 Mr. Hazlitt had first taken apartments at No. 9, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane. His landlord was a Mr. Walker, a tailor by trade, and a lodging-house keeper. Walker was Mr. J. P. Collier's tailor. Whether he was Mr. Hazlitt's tailor also, and it was thus he was led to go there, I know not. He had two daughters, Sarah and Betsy ; and it happened on the 16th August, 1820, that Mr. Hazlitt saw Sarah Walker for the first time, and was smitten by her personal attractions. Betsy Walker afterwards married a gentleman named Boscoe, and made him an excellent wife, it is said. To him Sarah Walker was perfect loveliness. He was infatuated. He thought that he saw in her features a likeness to the old paintings of the Madonna. The girl herself must have been, at any rate, of somewhat superior breeding, if not looks. She felt, or pretended 22 A CONVERSATION. to feel, an interest in Mr. ITazlitt's works, of some of which she had copies, given to her by himself. He gave her other books, but she said that his own were those she chit-fly prized ! She admired a statuette of Napoleon which he possessed, and he gave that to her. But she declined to receive it, and returned it to him afterwards, with the remark that she fancied he only meant she was to take care of it while he was away. In one of his conversations with Miss Walker, Mr. Haz- litt took occasion to describe to her the nice points of difference between the French, English, and Italian characters, and Miss W. pretended to feel an interest in the subject, and to express a wish to see foreign coun- tries, and to study foreign manners, if the opportunity should ever present itself. "H. But I am afraid I tire you with this prosing description of the French character, and abuse of the English ? • You know there is but one subject on which I should ever like to talk, if you would let me. S. I must say you don't seem to have a very high opinion of this country. H. Yes, it is the place that gave you birth . S. Do you like the French women better than the English. H. No: though they have finer eyes, talk better, and are better made. But they none of them look like you. I like the Italian women I have seen much better than the French. They have darker eyes, darker hair, and the accents of their native tongue are so much richer and more melodious. But I will give THE FLAGEOLET. 23 you a better account of them when I come back from Italy, if you would like to have it. S. I should much. It is for that I have sometimes had a wish for travelling abroad, to understand some- thing of the manners and characters of different people " Even an honest hallucination has its respectability to recommend or excuse it. Mr. Hazlitt's was complete and sincere as any man's ever was. As to dishonour- able views, I unhesitatingly affirm, once for all, that he had them not. A careful perusal of the book in which his passion is told will convince anybody of so much, who goes to the task of reading it with a correct know- ledge of the writer's character. Take another episode from this book, that of the flageolet. She has one, but he is not sure it is good enough for her. " S. It is late, and my father will be getting im- patient at my stopping so long. H. You know he has nothing to fear for you ; it is poor I that am alone in danger. But I wanted to ask about buying you a flageolet. Could I see that you have ? If it is a pretty one, it wouldn't be worth while ; but if it isn't, I thought of bespeaking an ivory one for you. Can't you bring up your own to show me ? S. Not to-night, sir. „ H. I wish you could. 8. I cannot, but I will in the morning. H. Whatever you determine I' must submit to. Good night, and bless thee !" 24 THE CONFESSION. " [The next morning S. brought up the tea-kettle, on which, and looking towards the tea-tray, she said, ' Oh, I see my sister has forgot the teapot.' It was not there, sure enough ; and tripping down-stairs, she came up in a minute, witli the teapot in one hand and the flageo- let in the other, balanced so sweetly and gracefully. It would have been awkward to have brought up the flageolet on the tea-tray, and she could not go down again on purpose to fetch it. Something therefore was to be omitted as an excuse. Exquisite witch !]' It appears that my grandfather was not the first person of position whom this "exquisite witch" had entranced. There must have been, a good deal in her, surely ? She confessed to my grandfather the existence of another attachment, one day, when he pressed her. " H. ... Is there not a prior attachment in the case ? Was there any one else that you did like ? S. Yes ; there was another. H. Ah ! I thought as much. Is it long ago, then ? S. It is two years, sir. H. And has time made an alteration, or do you still see him, sometimes ? S. No, sir'; but he is one to whom I feel the sincerest affection, and ever shall, though he is far distant. H. But did he return your regard ? S. I had eveiy reason to think so. H. What, then, broke off your intimacy ? S. It was the pride of birth, sir, that would not permit him to thiuk of our union. THE CONFESSION. 25 .2. Was he a young man of rank, then ? 8. His connections were high. S. And did he never attempt to persuade you to anything else ? 8. No ; he had too great a regard for me. H. Tell me ; how was it ? Was he so very hand- some ? Or was it the fineness of his manners ? & It was more his manner ; but I can't tell how it was. It was chiefly my fault. I was foolish to suppose he could ever think seriously of me. But he used to make me read with him — and I used to be with him a good deal, though not much, neither — and I found my affections engaged before I was aware of it. jH". And did your mother and family know of it ? 8. No, I have never told any one but you ; and I should not have mentioned it now, but I thought it might give you some satisfaction. E. Why did he go at last ? 8. We thought it better to part. S. And do you correspond ? 8. No, sir. But, perhaps, I may see him again some time or other, though it will only be in the way of friendship. . . ." I have thought it desirable to bring forward these passages, as I shall have to do others, in order to throw a little light on the character of Miss Walker. The difficulty is that we can only get at that through one who, though his love of truth Was so great as to lead him often to speak it to his own disadvantage and dis- the rnorosKn separation paragement, was in this cade the dupe of one of the most extraordinary illusions recorded in biography. The passion "led him like a little child " (to use his own phrase), and if it was satisfied, he augured that his "way would be like that of a little child." What is peculiarly striking is, that when he found that she had a second admirer, for whom though absent, and almost hopelessly lost to her, she entertained, as she told him, a sincere and unalterable fondness, he declared that he could bear to see her happy with this other, and would promote that object if he could ! But what he dreaded was, the feeling that she had a repugnance to him, independently of this. He began, perhaps, to fear that some of the J '» huk wood's people had been to her and had told her that he was pimpled lla/.litt, and the author of the books of which some account had been given in their magazine and in the 'Quarterly !' "When Mr. Hazlitt went to 9, Southampton Buildings, he was living separate from his wife. He had been doing so for some little time before the autumn of 1819, but I cannot supply the precise dates. The reason for this rupture has been already referred to, and it has been also shown that Mr. Hazlitt was not without his cause of complaint and dissatisfaction. I am also without exact information as to the period when Mr. Hazlitt proposed a formal separation under the Scottish law; it must have been late in 1820, or early in 1821, at all events, some time in the latter year. There were delays and postponements from some cause or other, and Mr. Hazlitt himself does not seem UNDER THE LAW OF SCOTLAND. 27 to have gone to Scotland till the beginning of 1822. In January of that year he was still at Stamford, and wrote while there an account of his conversations with Miss Walker, which he afterwards called 'Liber Amoris.' The original MS. is dated "Stamford, January 29th, 1822." In a letter to a friend he says, " I was detained "at Stamford and found myself dull, and could hit upon no other way of employing my time so agreeably" He seems to have taken his departure very shortly after the commencement of the new year (1822) ; for on the 17th of the month I find a letter addressed to him by Miss Walker from London (Southampton Buildings), in answer to one she had received. It was as follows : — "London, January 17th [1822]. "Sir, " Doctor Read sent the ' London Magazine,' with compliments and thanks ; no letters or parcels, except the one which I have sent with the 'Magazine,' ac- cording to your directions. Mr. Lamb sent for the things which you left in our care, likewise a cravat which was sent with them. I send my thanks for your kind offer, but must decline accepting it. Baby is quite well. The first floor is occupied at present ; it is quite uncertain when it will be disengaged. " My family send their best respects to you. I hope, sir, your little son is quite well. " From yorws respectfully, "S. Walker. * W. Hazlitt, Esq." 28 ARRIVAL IN EDINBURGH The following is a business note from Mr. ITessey the publisher. I surmise that it was forwarded to him in the country, as it is evident that he had left town a week before : — " My dear Sir, "I have the pleasure to send you, enclosed, a cheque for twenty 'pounds. I have not had time to make out the account ; but from a slight glance of it, I think the paper on the ' Marbles,'* just received, will pretty nearly balance it. Shall we put your signature, W. H. or I., at the foot of the paper ? Please to send a line by bearer to answer this question, and to say you have received the cheque — a pleasant journey to you. " Yours very truly, " J. A. Hessey. " Jan. 23, 1822. " We shall be glad to receive the remainder of the essay as soon as" it is ready. I think Vinkebooms will have no objection to play his part in the controversy. " W. Hazlitt, Esq." Upon his arrival at Edinburgh he opened a corre- spondence with a friend, whom he had made the re- pository of his confidence and his secrets — at present, the sole repository, I imagine. He wrote to Mr. Pat- more t when he had been in Scotland three weeks * The 'Essay on the Elgin Marbles,' contributed to the ' London Magazine.' f If Mr. Patmore had not avowed himself in ' My Friends and Acquaintance' to be the person to whom the corre- LETTER TO MISS WALKER. 29 nearly, and told him that he had written twice to Miss Walker, and had had only one note from her, couched in very distant terms. Mr. Hazlitt's letter (or one of them rather) was written in February 1822 ; he sent Mr. Patmore a copy of it. "You will scold me for this," he began, "and ask me if this is keeping my promise to mind my work. One half of it was to think of Sarah ; and besides, I do not neglect my work either, I assure you. I regularly do ten pages a day, which mounts up to thirty guineas' worth a week, so that you see I should grow rich at this rate, if I could keep on so. ... I walk out here in an afternoon, and hear the notes of the thrush, that come up from a sheltered valley below, welcome in the spring ; but they do not melt my heart as they used : it is grown cold and dead. As you say, it will one day be colder. ... Do not send any letters that come. I should like you and your mother (if agreeable) to go and see Mr. Kean in ^Othello,' and Miss Stephens in ' Love in a Village.' If you will, I will write to Mr. T to send you tickets. Has Mr. Patmore called? . . . ." spondence was addressed, I should have felt it my duty to suppress his name. As it is, I do not see that there can be any object in doing so. -> •jo CHAPTER IV. 1822. The subject continued. The following was the reply received : — " Sir, il I should not have disregarded your injunction not to send you any more letters that might come to you, had I not promised the gentleman who left the enclosed to forward it at the earliest opportunity, as lie said it was of consequence. Mr. Patmore called the day after you left town. My mother and myself are much obliged by your kind offer of tickets to the play, but must decline accepting it. My family send their best respects, in which they are joined by " Yours truly, " B. Walker." It appears that this letter was franked, and Mr. Haz- litt could not make out the writing. He had asked her whether the apartments occupied by him were let yet, and she took no notice of the question. He con- fessed to Mr. Patmore in this letter that he half sus- CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. PATMORE. 31 pected her to be " an arrant jilt," yet lie " loved lier dearly." The evening before he left for Scotland, he had broken ground on the subject of a platonic attachment, but she did not quite know whether that could be. "Her father was rather strict, and would object." The next letter to Patinore is of the 30th March, 1822. He was still alone at or near Edinburgh : nor was he quite sure yet, whether Mrs. Hazlitt was coming there to have the business settled, or not. He had written to 9, Southampton Buildings, once more, but his letter remained without an answer. I shall not enter into the merely rhapsodical portions of this cor- res23ondence, because their committal to paper and appearance in print once must ever form a subject of regret. They are the unconnected and inconsequent outpourings of an imagination always supernaturally vivid, and now morbidly so. But he was not drawn away entirely from other matters. These letters occa- sionally contain miscellaneous items of news. " It is well," says he, " I had finished Colburn's work,* before all this came upon me. It is one com- fort I have done that. ... I write this on the suppo- sition that Mrs. H. may still come here, and that I may be left in suspense a week or two longer. But, for God's sake, don't go near the place on my account. Direct to me at the post-office, 'and if I return to town directly, as I fear, I will leave word for them to for- ward the letter to me in London — not in S. B * The second volume of ' Table Talk.' 32 CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. TAT-MORE. I have finished the book of my conversations with her, which I call ' Liber Amoris.' " Yours truly, " W. H.* " Edinburgh, March 30. "P. S. I have seen the great little man,-f- and he is very gracious to me. Et safemme aussi! I tell him I am dull and out of spirits. He says he cannot per- ceive it. He is a person of an infinite vivacity. My Sardanapalus \ is to be in. In my judgment Myrrha is most like S. W., only I am not like Sardanapalus. " P. G. Patmore, Esq., " 12 Greek Street, Soho, London." I have no letter between March 30th and April 7th. Mrs. Hazlitt was still expected, but had not yet arrived. [April 7, 1822.] "My dear Friend, " I received your letter this morning with gratitude. I have felt somewhat easier since. It showed your in- terest in my vexations, and also that you knew nothing worse than I did. I cannot describe the weakness of mind to which she has reduced me. I am come back to Edin- burgh about this cursed business, and Mrs. H. is coming down next week A thought has struck me. * I am quoting from the original autograph letter : in the printed copy the text differs. f Jeffrey. X The review of Byron's ' Sardanapalus,' in the ' Edinburgh.' CORRESPONDENCE WITH ME. PATIMORE. 33 Her father has a bill of mine for 107. unhonoured, about which I tipped her a cavalier epistle ten days ago, saying I should be in town this week, and ' would call and take it up,' but nothing reproachful. Now if you can get Colburn, who has a deposit of 220 pp. of the new volume, to come down with 10Z., you might call and take up the aforesaid bill, saying that I am prevented from coming to town, as I expected, by the business I came about "W.H. "P.S. Could you fill up two blanks for me in an essay on Burleigh House in Colburn's hands, — one, Lamb's Description of the Sports in the Forest :— see John Woodvil, To see the sun to bed, and to arise, &c. ; the other, Northcote's account of Claude Lorraine iD his Vision of a Painter at the end of his life of Sir Joshua? .... "Final. Don't go at all To think that I should feel as I have done for such a monster ! " P. G. Patmore, Esq., " 12, Greek Street, Solio, London/ - On Sunday the 21st April, 1822, Mrs. Hazlitt landed at Leith. She had left London on the previous Sunday in the smack Superb, at 3 p.m. So it had been a week's voyage. She experienced fine, dry weather. In her Diary, which she entitled the ' Journal of my Trip to Scotland,' she gives the following account of her arrival : — VOL. II. D 3 I MBS. ii a/.i.i n vi;i;i\ ES. Sunday, 21st [April], — At 5 a.m. calm. At 1 p.m. landed safe a1 Leith. A laddie brought my luggage with nir to tit.- Black Bull, Catherine Street, Edin- burgh. hiiicd at three on mutton chops. Met Mr. Bell at the door, as 1 was going to take a walk after dinner. He had been on board tin; vessel to inquire for me. After he went, I walked up to Edin- burgh Returned to tea Went to bed at half-past twelve. Mr. lla/litt casually heard of her arrival from Mr. Bell, but they did not apparently meet, though Mr. H. was at the Black Bull that Sunday, as will be seen presently. He wrote off to Mr. Patmore on the same day :— [Edinburgh, April 21, 1822.] " My dear Patmore, " I got your letter this morning, and I kiss the rod not only with submission but gratitude. Your rebukes of me and your defences of her are the only things thai o me Be it known to you that while I write this I am drinking tde at the Black Bull, celebrated in Blackwood. It is owing to your letter. Could I think the love honest, I am proof against Edinburgh ale. . . . Mrs. H. is actually on her way here. I was going to set off home .... when coming up Leith Walk I met an old friend come down here to settle, who said, ' I saw your wife at the wharf. She had just paid her pa -sage by the Superb.' . . . This BeU whom I met is the very man to negotiate the business between us. mks. hazlitt's diaey. 35 Should the business succeed, and I should be free, do you think S. W. will be Mrs, ? If she will she shall ; aucl to call her so to you, or to hear her called so by others, will be music to my ears such as they never heard [!] How I sometimes think of the time I first saw the sweet apparition, August 16, 1820 ! . . . I am glad you go on swimmingly with the N[ew] M[onthly] M[agazine]. I shall be back in a week or a month. I won't write to lier. [No signature.] "I wish Colburn would send me word what he is about. Tell him what I am about, if you think it Avise to do so. "P. G. Patmore, Esq., " 12, Greek Street, Soho, London." The letters in the printed volume are very apt to mislead such readers as they may find, for they are not printed faithfully, even as regards the sequence of events. We must therefore go back to Mrs. Hazlitt's Diary, which is, I believe, perfectly accurate, and cer- tainly most minute : — Monday, 22nd [April] Mr. Bell called about twelve, and I went with him to Mr. Cranstoun, the barrister, to consult him on the practicability and safety of procuring a divorce, and informed him that my friends in England had rather alarmed me by assert- ing that, if I took the oath of cajumny, and swore that there was no collusion between Mr. Hazlitt and myself to procure the divorce, I should be liable to a prosecu- 36 hbs. bazlitt's diary. tion and transportation for perjury. Mr. Hazlitt having certainly told me thai he should never live with me again, and as my situation must have long been uncom- fortable, he thoughl for hoth our sakes it would be better tq obtain a divorce, and put an end to it T lay, 23rd. — Consulted Mr. Gray [a solicitor]. The case must I ie submit t ed to the procurators to decide whether 1 may be admitted to the oath of calumny. If they agree to it, the oath to be adminis- tered, then Mr. Eazlitt to be cited in answer to the charge, and if not defended [I told him I was sure Mr. Hazlitt had no such intention, as he was quite as desirous of obtaining the divorce as me], he said then, if no demur or difficulty arose about proofs, the cause would probably occupy two months, and cost 50?., but that I should have to send to England for the testimony of two witnesses who were present at the marriage, and also to testify that we acknowledged each other as hus- band and wife, and were so esteemed by our friends, neighbours, acquaintances, &e. He said it was fortunate thai Mr. and Mrs. Bell were here to bear testimony to the latter part. And thai I must also procure a certifi- cat< of my marriage from St. Andrew's Church, Holborn. I took the questions which Mr. Gray wrote to Mr. Hell, win* added a note, and I put it in the penny post. Senl also the paper signed by Mr. Hazlitt secur- ing the reversion of my money to the child, which Mr. Bell bad giveD me, by the mail to Coulson, requesting him to gel it properly stamped and return it to me, gether with the certificate of my marriage MRS. hazlitt's diaey. 37 Thursday, 25th April [1822].— Mr. Bell called to ask if he could be of any assistance to me. I had just sent a note to Mr. Hazlitt to say that I demurred to the oath, so there was no occasion to trouble Mr. Bell. In the afternoon Mr. Ritchie, of the Scotsman newspaper, called to beg me, as a friend to both (I had never seen or heard of him before), to proceed in the divorce, and re- lieve all parties from an unpleasant situation. Said that with my appearance it was highly probable that I might marry again, and meet with a person more con- genial to me than Mr. Hazlitt had unfortunately proved. That Mr. Hazlitt was in such a state of nervous irrita- bility that he could not work or apply to anything, and that he thought that he would not live very long if he was not easier in his mind. I told him I did not my- self think that he would survive me In the evening Mr. Bell called I then told him of Mr. Ritchie's visit, at which he seemed much surprised, and said if Mr. Hazlitt had sent him, as I supposed, he acted with great want of judgment and prudence. .... Saturdaij, 21th April— Gave Mr. Bell the stamp for the 50Z. bill, and the following paper of memorandum for Mr. Hazlitt to sign: — " 1. William Hazlitt to pay the whole expense of board, clothing, and education, for his son, William Hazlitt, by his wife, Sarah Hazlitt (late Stoddart), and she to be allowed free access to him at all times, and occasional visits from him. " 2. William Hazlitt to pay board, lodging, law, and all other expenses incurred by his said wife during her 38 MBS. bazlitt's diary. stay in Scotland on this divorce business, together with travelling expens -. •::. William Hazlitt to give a uote-of-hand for fifty pounds .it six i: 1I1-. payable to William Netherfold or order. Value Received." Mr. Bell said he would go that day to 3Ir. Gray then go i-ii to Mr. Eazlitt's, and call on me afterwards ; 1 ui I saw no more of him. 9 nday, 28th April, L822.— Wrote to Mr. Bazlitt to inform him 1 had only between five and six poundsofmy quarter's money Left, and therefore, if he did not send me some immediately, and i'ullil his agreement for the rest, I should be obliged to return on Tuesday, while I had enough to take me back. Sent the letter by a laddie. Called on Mr. Bell, who said that Mr. Gray was not at home when ho called, but that he had seen hi- son. and appointed to be with him at ten o'clock on Monday morning. Told me that Mr. Hazlitt said he would give the draft to fifty pounds at throe months La- id of six, when the proceedings had commenced (meaning, I suppose, when the oath was taken, for they hail already commenced) hut would do nothing before, d me he was gone to Lanark, but would be back on Monday morning Tuesday, •"'.< th April. — Went to Mr. 1! :1 alter dinner, who did not know whether Mr. Bazlitt was returned 1 r not In the evening, after some hesitation, w. nt to .Mr. Hazlitt myself for an answer. He told me he expected thirtypounds from Colburn on Thursday, 1 then he wquld lei me have live pounds for present MRS. hazlitt's diary. 39 expenses ; that he had but one . pound in his pocket, but if I wanted it, I should have that. That he was going to give two lectures at Glasgow next week, for which he was to have 100?., and he had eighty pounds beside to receive for the ' Table Talk ' in a fortnight, out of which sums he pledged himself to fulfil his engagements relative to my expenses : and also to make me a handsome present, when it was over (201.), as I seemed to love money. Or it would enable me to travel back by land, as I said I should prefer seeing something of the country to going back in the steamboat, which he proposed. Said he would give the note-of-hand for fifty pounds to Mr, Kitchie for me, payable to whoever I pleased : if he could conveniently at the time, it should be for three months instead of six, but he was not certain of that Inquired if I had taken the oath. I told him I only waited a summons from Mr. Gray, if I could depend upon the money, but I could not live in a strange place without : and I had no friends or means of earning money here as he had ; though, as I had still four pounds, I could wait a few days. I asked him how the expenses, or my draught, were to be paid, if he went abroad, and he answered that, if he succeeded in the divorce, he should be easy in his mind, and able to work, and then he should probably be back in three months ; but other- wise, he might leave England for ever. He said that as soon as I had got him to sign a paper giving away a 150Z. a year from himself, I talked of going back, and leaving everything. . . I told him to recollect that it Id NOTES OF A CONVERSATION. was no advantage for myself that I sought ... it was only to secure s imething to his child as well as mine. He said he could do very well for the chihl himself; and thai he was allowed to be a very indulgent, kind lather — sonic people thought too much so. I said I did not dispute his fondness for him, bnt I must observe that though he got a great deal of money, he never saved or had any b) him, or was likely to make much pro- vision for the child; neither could I think it was proper, or for his welfare that he should take him to the Fives Court, and such places .... it was likely to corrupt and vitiate him. . . . He said perhaps it was \\ ti ►ng, but that he did uot know that it was any good to bring up children in ignorance of the world. . . . He said I had always despised him and his abilities. . . . ill that a paper had been brought to him from Mr. Gray that day, but that he was only just come in from Lanark, after walking thirty miles, and was get- ting his tea Thursday, 2nd May [1822].— Mr. Bell called to say Mr. Ilazlitt would sign the papers to-morrow and leave [them] in his hand. And that he should bring me the tirst live pounds. When he was gone, I wrote to Mr. Ilazlitt, requesting him to leave the papers in Mr. Ritchie's hands, as he had before proposed. Friday, 3rd May. — Received the certificate of my _ marriage, and the stamped paper transferring my money to the child after my death, from ('unison, the carriage of which c.-t .-even shilling-. Called on Mr. Cray, who .-aid. on my asking him when my presence would LECTUKES AT GLASGOW. 41 be necessary in the business, that he should not call on me till this day three weeks Saturday, 4th May, 1822. — Mr. Ritchie called, and gave me -il, said Mr. Hazlitt could not spare more then, as he was just setting off for Glasgow Tuesday, 7th May. — Wrote to my little son Tuesday, 21st May. — Wrote to Mr. Hazlitt for money. The note was returned with a message that he was gone to London, and would not be back for a fortnight. Wednesday, 22nd. — Called on Mr. Ritchie to inquire what I was to do for money, as Mr. Hazlitt had gone off without sending me any : he seemed surprised to hear he was in London, but conjectured he was gone about the publication of his book, took his address, and said he would write to him in the evening. Mr. Hazlitt gave two lectures at the Andersonian Institution, Glasgow. The first, which took place on Monday, May 6, was on Milton and Shakespeare. In the Glasgow Herald of May 3, 1822, is the following notice : — Andersonia n Institution. Mr. Hazlitt Lectures on Monday evening, May the 6th. on Milton and Shakespeare. Tickets, five shillings. To Commence at 8 o'clock. This lecture was thus noticed in the same paper for Friday, May 10 :— * * There are a few lines alluding to this lecture in the Examiner for May 12, 1822. 12 LEI li RES A'l' GLASGOW. ■'Mr. Ha/.litt's lecture ell Monday night last was numerously attended, and made a powerful impression upon an audience composed of Borne of the most dis- tinguished characters and most respectable inhabitants of our city. His perception of the beauties and faults ofourgreal dramatist was vivid and accurate, and the sublimities of Milton were developed with kindred enthusiasm." The second Lecture was advertised for Monday the 13th, at the same hour, the ticket- five shillings, as be" fore. The subject was to be Burns; but the plan was subsequently altered, and the Herald of May 13 an- nounced thai Mr. lla/litt would treat of Thomson and Bubns. The following notice of this second and farewell lecture appeared in the Scotsman of Saturday. May 18, 1822. as an extract from the Glasgow Chronicle: — •• Mr. Hazlitt delivered his second and last lecture on Monday evening to a numerous and respectable audience. Nothing could exceed the marked attention with which he was heard throughout. ' He concluded,' continues a correspondent, 'amidst the plaudits of highly-raised and highly-gratified expectation.'" While he was at Glasgow he attended St. John's Church, for the sake of bearing Dr. Chalmers preach. - We never saw," he says, " fuller attendances or more profound attention — it was like a sea of eyes, a swarm of head-, -aping for mysteries, and staring for eluci- dation-."' 43 CHAPTER V. 1822. The subject continued. It is necessary now to shut up the Diary, and to resume our examination of the correspondence with Patmore, where we shall find (what the Diary does not tell us) an account of Mr. Hazlitt's temporary return to town. The letter which follows the last from which I extracted the pertinent and illustrative parts, was written, it should be recollected, on the 21st April, 1822, on the very day of Mrs. Hazlitt's arrival at Leith in the Superb. The next has no date, but from an expression in the letter which succeeds, it may be securely assigned to the 2nd of June. It was posted at Scarborough, where the steamboat put in by which Mr. Hazlitt had taken his passage to London. _ [Off Scarborough, in the steamboat for London.] " Deae Patmore, " What have I suffered since I parted with you ! A raging fire is in my heart and in my brain, that never ! I c 0RRE8P0NDEN< E \\ l "I'll quita in.'. The steamboal (which I foolishly ventured ..ii board) seems a prison-house,. a Bort of spectre-ship, moving ou through an infernal lake, without wind or tide, i'\ some aecromantic power — the Bplashing of the waves, the noise of the engine, gives me no rest, night or day— no tree, no natural object, varies the in — but the abyss is before me, and all my peace lies welt. •riii- iii ii ! . . . Tlic people aboul me are ill, uncomfortable, wretched enough, many <>f them — but to-morrow or next day they reach the place of their destination, and all will be new and delightful. To me it will be the same The people about me even take notice of my dumb despair, and pity me. What is to !>•■ d >? I cannot forget her; and 1 can find no other like whal she seemed " W. H." The arrangement of the letters in the ' Liber Amoris ' is again incorrect and unfaithful to the order of time. In the series of the original autographs, from which I quote, the next letter is of the 3rd June. Nothing had yet been settled, and Mrs. Bazlitt had started on a tour to the Highlands and to Inland. She was in tolerably active correspondence during the interval with her son, Miss hand.. Mr. Walter Coulson, and her sister-in-law, _'v ll.izlitt. Tin- 3rd of June letter, however, contains only one passage which is at all to the purpose, and even that perhaps might be nol disadvantageously omitted. It demonstrates the, overwhelming force of the infatuation ME, PATMOKE RESUMED. 45 as well as the nervous shock, and is so far worth a place. " Do you know," he says to his correspondent, " the only thing that soothes or melts me is the idea of taking my little boy, whom I can no longer support, and wandering through the country as beggars ! " He finishes by saying that if he could find out her [S. W.'s] real character to be different from what he had believed, " I should be no longer the wretch I am, or the god I might have been, but what I was before, poor, plain W. H." The next is a note, which does not occur in the printed book : — [Between June 3 and June 9, 1822, but undated.] " My only Friend, "I should like you to fetch the MSS., and then to ascertain for me whether I had better return there or not, as soon as this affair is over. I cannot give her up without an absolute certainty. Only, however, sound the matter by saying, for instance, that you are desired to get me a lodging, and that you believe I should prefer being there to being anywhere else. You may say that the affair of the divorce is over, and that I am gone a tour in the Highlands Ours was the sweetest friendship. Oh ! might the delusion be renewed, that I might die in it ! Test her through some one who will satisfy my soul I have lost only a lovely frail one that I was not likely to gain bf true love. I am going to see K , to get him to go with me to the High- 16 WITH S K IN THE lands, and talk about her. I shall be back Thursday week, to appear in court pro formd the aert day. . . . •• Send me a line aboul my little boj . «W. II. •■ in. ( foorge si reefc, Edinburgh." Ee found out K , as he had said In- Bhould do, and induced him to accompany him to the Highlands. Their conversations appear to have been, for the most part, a mere repetition of whal we are already, to confess the truth, a little too familiar with. In a letter, which he addressed to K afterwards, or which at least is thrown in the 'Liber Anions' into an epistolary Bhape, he reminds him of what they talked of and whal they saw during tin's remarkable trip together. "You remember," he says to him, "the morning when I said, ' I will go and repose my sorrows al the foot of Ben Lomond' — and when from Dumbarton Bridge its giant-shadow, clad in air and sunshine, appeared in view? We had a pleasant day's walk. We passed Smollett's monument on the road (somehow these ports touch one in reflection more than most military heroes) — talked of old times. You repeated Logan's beautiful verses to the cuckoo, which I wanted to compare with "Wordsworth's, but my courage failed me; you then told me some passages of an early attachment which was suddenly broken off; we con- sidered together which was the most to be pitied, a disappointment in love where the attachment was mutual, or our where there has been no return; and HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 47 we both agreed, I think, that the former was best to be endured, and that to have the consciousness of it a companion for life was the least evil of the two, as there was a secret sweetness that took off the bitter- ness and the sting of regret One had been mv fate, the other had been yours ! " You startled me every now and then from my reverie by the robust voice in which you asked the country people (by no means prodigal of their answers) ' if there was any trout-fishing in those streams ?' and our dinner at Luss set us up for the rest of our day's march. "The sky now became overcast; but this, I think, added to the effect of the scene. The road to Tarbet is superb. It is on the very verge of the lake — hard, level, rocky, with low stone bridges constantly flung across it, and fringed with birch-trees, just then budding into spring, behind which, as through a slight veil, you saw the huge shadowy form of Ben Lomond The snow on the mountain w T ould not let us ascend ; and being weary of waiting, and of being visited by the guide every two hours to let us know that the weather would not do, we returned, you homewards, and I to London " He did not hear from Patmore, whom he had re- quested to let him know how matters were going on at Southampton Buildings, and he returned to Scotland without going to London at aM. On the 9th of June he wrote to Mr. Patmore from an inn in Berwickshire : 18 CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. PATMORE. "Ronton Inn. Berwickshire. [June 9, 1822.] •' .Mv DEAB PATMORE, •• Voiir letter raised me for a moment from the depths of despair, bul not hearing from you yesterday or to-day, as I hoped, I am gone back again I grant ;ill you say about my self-tormenting madness, but lias it been without cause ? When I think of tin's, and I think of it for ever (except when I read your letters), tlio air I breathe stifles me I can do nothing. What is the use of all I have done? Is it not this thinking beyond my strength, my feeling more than I ought about so many things, that has withered me up, and made me a thing for love to shrink from and wonder at ? . . . . My state is that I feel I shall never lie down again at night nor rise up of a morning in peace, nor ever behold my little boy's face with pleasure, while I live, unless I am restored to her favour I wander, or rather crawl, by the sea-side, and the eternal ocean, and lasting despair, and her face are before me Do let me know if anything lias passed: suspense is my greatest torment. Jeffrey (to whom I did a little unfold) came down with 100/., to give me time to recover, and I am going to Benton Inn to see if I can work a little hi the three weeks before it will be over, if all goes well. Tell Colburn to send the ' Table Talk ' to him, 92, George Street, Edinburgh, unless he is mad, and wants to ruin me Write on the receipt of this, and believe me yours unspeakablv obliged, " W. H." CORRESPONDENCE CONTINUED. 49 The next letter hardly requires a preface : — [Renton Inn, Berwickshire, June 18, 1822.] " My dear Friend, " Here I am at Eenton, amid the hills and groves which I greeted in their barrenness in winter, but which have now put on their full green attire, that shows lovely m this northern twilight, but speaks a tale of sadness to this heart, widowed of its last and its dearest, its only hope. For a mau who writes such nonsense, I write a good hand. Musing over my only subject (Othello's occupation, alas ! is gone), I have at last hit upon a truth that, if true, explains all, and satisfies me. You will by this time probably know something, from having called and seen how the land lies, that will make you a judge how far I have stepped into madness in my conjectures. If I am right, all engines set at work at once that punish ungrateful woman! Oh, lovely Eenton Inn ! here I wrote a volume of Essays ; here I wrote my enamoured follies to her, thinking her human, and that below was not all the fiends By this time you probably know enough, and know whether this following solution is in rerum naturd at No. 9, S. B. .... Say that I shall want it [the lodging] very little the next year, as I shall be abroad for some months, but that I wish to keep it on, to have a place to come to when I am in London If you get a civil answer to this, take it for me, and send me word Learn first' if the great man of Penmaen-Mawr is still there. VOL. II. e 50 mes. hazlttt's diabi bestjmed. You may do this bj asking after my hamper of books, which was in the back parlour Tell her that I am free, and that I have had a b ivere illness. «W. II. " I would give a thousand worlds to believe her any- thing bul what 1 suppose "W. H. •■ 1" I Esq., ••12. Greek Street, St .ho, "London." So runs this letter, crossr 1 and crossed again, of June l.sth ; tin-re is a ir 1 deal in it which J have with- held, as irrelevant and foreign to the purpose. J iy com- paring it with the version given in the ' Liber Anions,' very important discrepancies present themselves, pro- bably introduced by the writer subsequently, when the correspondence was returned t<» him for the }mrposes of the book. I have strictly adhered to the text as it was originally composed. Mrs. Hazlitfs Diary resumed. Sunday, c Mh June, 1822. — Sent a letter to Mr. ITazlitt to remit the money he had promised. Monday, 10/// ./ ne. — Received a note from M \ Ritchie, to say lie would come the next day and lain about money matters to me. Had also a letter from the child Tin \J . — Mr. Ritchie came. . . . 1 me ■ lit only got oiJ. from Glasgow, MRS. hazlitt's diary. 51 and nothing from Colburn, so that he could not give me the money I asked, but that he had told him whatever small sums of money I wanted to go on with, he would let me have by some means or other. TJmrsday, 13th June [1822]. — Mr. Bell called, and said that Mr. Hazlitt had gone to Eenton Inn, but that he would remit me some money, which he showed him he had for the purpose, as soon as the oath was taken, which he said he was to give him due notice of. ... . Asked if I did not take the oath to-morrow ? I said I had not heard from Mr. Gray, but was in hourly expec- tation of it The note came soon after, appoint- ing the next day Friday, 14th June. — Mr. Bell called, and said he was going to Mr. Gray's, and would come back for me. Returned, and said Mr. Gray informed him he could not be admitted, as he would be called on with Mrs. Bell the next Friday as witnesses. So I under- took to let him know when the ceremony was over. [Here follows the description of the taking of the oath.] .... On the whole, with the utmost expedition they can use, and supposing no impediments, it will be five weeks from this day before all is finished. Went down and reported this to Mr. and Mrs. Bell : dined there. They told me that Mr. Hazlitt took 90Z. to the Eenton Inn with him Mr. Bell undertook to send him a parcel that night with the joyful intelligence of the oath being taken, as he would ,get it sooner that way than by the post Saturday, 15th June— Mr. Bell called, and wrote a 52 MRS. II AZI.ll l "> BOLIOITUDE Aiwn y EBB BON. letter to Mr. Eazlitl here, and made it into a parcel, no1 having Benl to him Lasl night, as he promised. Wrote to Peggy. Peel yery faint to-day. 6 nday, 10/A Jim \ 1822].— \dam Bell called, while I was at breakfast, to say thai Mr. Bazlitt was come back, and had been at their house the night I M 'I'llll' Monday, 17/// June. — Went to 31 r. 11' '11 as soon a- 1 had breakfasted. Retold me that Mr. Ritchie was to bring me 207. that day in part of payment, and that tin- rest would be paid me as Mr. 1 1 a/1 it t could get it. That he had proposed only ten now, but that Mr. Bell had told him that that would not do, as I proposed taking some journey, and had no money. Said he did not know anything about the child. Went home very uneasy about him, as his holidays were to begin this day; and 1 fretted that he should bo left 1 here, and thought he would be very uneasy if they had not sent him to Winterslow, and feel quite unhappy and for- saken ; and thought on his father's refusing to tell me where he was t<> be, til) I was so nervous and hysterical I could not stay in the hou-e. Went down to Mr. Bell's again at one, as they told me he [Mr. H.] would be there about that time, thai I might see him myself, and know where the child was. lb' was net come, and Mr. Bell did not like my meeting him there. I told him if I could not gain information of the child, 1 would set oft" to London directly, and find him out. and Leave the business here just ;i> it was lie then gave me a note to send him MRS. HAZLITT'S SOLICITUDE ABOUT HER SON. 53 [Mr. EL] about it, but I carried it myself, and asked to see him. They said lie was out, but would return at three o'clock. I left the note, and went at three. They then said he would be back to dinner at four. I wandered about between that and Mr. Bell's till four ; then, going again, I met him by the way : he gave me 10?., and said I should have more soon by Mr. Bell. I said I did not like Mr. Bell; I had rather he sent by Mr. Bitchie, which he said he would. I asked about the child, aucl he said he was going to write that night to Mr. John Hunt about him ; so that the poor little fellow is really fretting, and thinking himself neglected Mr. Bell said that he seemed quite enamoured of a letter he had been writing to Patmore ; that in their walk the day before he pulled it out of his pocket twenty times, and wanted to read it to them ; that he talked so loud, and acted so extravagantly, that the people stood and stared at them as they passed, and seemed to take him for a madman [The next twelve clays were spent by Mrs. H. in the tour to the Highlands and to Dublin. She returned on the 28th June.] 54 CHAPTER VI. 1822. The subject concluded. Mr. Hazlitt, upon the conclusion of the affair, with the exception of certain formalities, wrote to Mr. Pat- more : — " 10, George Street, Edinburgh. [June 18 or 19, received June 20, 1822.] " My dear Friend, " The deed is done, and I am virtually a free man. Mrs. H. took the oath on Friday What had I better do in these circumstances ? . . . . She [Miss AY.] has shot me through with poisoned arrows, and I think another winged wound would finish me. It is a pleasant sort of balm she has left in my heart. One tiling I agree with you in, it will remain there for ever, but yet not very long. It festers and consumes me. If it were not for my little boy, whose face I see struck blank at the news, and looking through the world for pity, and meeting with contempt, I should soon settle the question by my death. That is the only thought that brings my wandering reason to an anchor, that CORRESPONDENCE WITH PATMORE. 55 excites the least interest, or gives me fortitude to bear up against what I am doomed to feel for the ungrateful. Oh, answer me, and save me, if possible, for her and from myself. " W. H. " Will you call at Mr. Dawson's school, Hunter Street, and tell the little boy I'll write to him or see him on Saturday morning. Poor little fellow ! See Col- burn for me about the book. The letter, I take it, was from him." [Edinburgh, June 25, 1822.] " My dear and good Friend, " I am afraid that I trouble you with my querulous epistles; but this is probably the last. To-morrow decides my fate with respect to her ; and the next day I expect to be a free man. There has been a delay pro forma of ten days. In vain ! Was it not for her, and to lay my freedom at her feet, that I took this step that has cost me infinite wretchedness? .... You, who have been a favourite with women, do not know what it is to be deprived of one's only hope, and to have it turned to a mockery and a scorn. There is nothing in the world left that can give me one drop of comfort — that I feel more and more. ., . . . The breeze does no cool me, and the blue sky does not allure my eye. I gaze only on her face, like a marble image averted from me — ah ! the only face that ever was turned fondly to me! 56 CORRESPONDENCE WITH PATMORE. "I shall, I hope, be in town next Friday at furthest. .... Not till Friday week. Write, for God's sake, and let me know the worst. " I have no answer from her. I wish you to call on Etoscoe* in confidence, to say that I intend to make her an offer of marriage, and that I will write to her father the moment I am free (next Friday week), and to ask him whether he thinks it will be to any purpose, and what he would advise me to do You don't know what I suffer, or you would not be so severe upon me. My death will, I hope, satisfy every one before long. " W. H." A very important letter, so far as regards this very delicate and painful subject, was received from Mr. Patmore in reply to the above. He had made inquiries, and the result was that there was the best authoritv for supposing Miss Walker to be a person of good character and conduct, but that she was not disposed to entertain any proposal on the part of Mr. Hazlitt, of whom, to say the truth, after what she had seen and heard, she stood in considerable awe. Nothing could be more candid and blunt than the tone of Mr. Fatmore's letter, and I think that tins candour and bluntness operated beneficially in the end. But the effect was not im- mediate. While Mr. Hazlitt was in correspondence with Mr. Patmore and the Walkers about this unfortunate * TLi<' gentlemari who had married the sister, and was said to !"■ v ry happy in his choice. ANXIETY ABOUT THEIE SON. 57 and extraordinary business, his wife, as she was still, till sentence was pronounced, was occupied in her tour. On her return to Edinburgh, she found letters from Mr. Coulson, from Peggy Hazlitt, and from her son, waiting for her. Mrs. HazliWs Diary resumed. Saturday, 29th June, 1822. — Sent the child's letter to his father with a note, telling him that I was just returned from Dublin with four shillings and sixpence in my pocket, and I wanted more money. He came about two o'clock, and brought me ten pounds, and said he did not think he was indebted to me my quarter's money, as he had supplied me with more than was necessary to keep me. .... He had been uneasy at not hearing from the child, though he had sent him a pound and ordered him to write. I remarked that the letter I sent him was addressed to him, and I supposed the child did not know how to direct to him. He said he would if he had attended to what he told him. That he wrote to Patmore, and desired him to see for the child, and convey him to Mr. John Hunt's, and that in his answer he said, " I have been to the school, and rejoiced the poor little fellow/ s heart by bringing him away with me, and in the afternoon he is going by the stage to Mr. Hunt's* He has only been detained two days after the holidays begun." .... That Mr. Prentice had told him last night it [the business] was again * At Taunton. 58 FUBTHEB EXTRACTS FBOM THE DIARY, put off another fortnight ; requested me to write to Mr. Gray, to know whether I should be called on next Friday, and it' it would be necessary for me to remain in Scotland after that time; if not, he thought I had better go on the Saturday by the steamboat, as the ac- commodation was excellent, and it was very pleasant and good company. That he intended going by it himself, as soon as he could, when the affair was over, and there- fore I had better set out first, as our being seen there together would be awkward, and would look like making a mockery of the lawyers here. Wished I would also write to the child in the evening, as his nerves were in such an irritable state he was unable to do so. Both which requests I complied with. Monday, 1st July. — Received a note from Mr. Gray, to say I should not be called on for two or three weeks, but without telling me how long I must remain in Scotland. Saturday, Gth July [1822].— .... Met Mr. Hazlitt and Mr. Henderson, who had just arrived [at Dalkeith Palace] in a gig. Mr. H. said he had heard again from Patmore, who saw the child last Tuesday, and that he was well and happy. I told him of my last letter and its contents [He] adverted again to the awkwardness of our going back in the same boat. I told him I had some thoughts of going by boat to Liverpool and the rest by land, as I should see more of the country that way ; which he seemed to like. Asked me if I meant to go to Winterslow ? .Said, yes, but that I should be a week or two in London first. He said he AND THEIE UTILITY. 59 meant to go to Winterslow, and tiy if he could write,* for lie had been so distracted the last five months he could do nothing. That he might also go to his mother'sf for a short time, arid that he meant to take the child from school at the half-quarter, and take him with him ; and that after the holidays at Christmas he should return to Mr. Dawson's again. Said he had not been to town [London], and that we had better have no communication at present, but that when it was over he would let me have the money as he could get it. Asked if I had seen Eoslin Castle, and said he was there last Tuesday with Bell, and thought it a fine place, Mr. Henderson shook hands, and made many apologies for not recollecting me, and said I looked very well, but that from my speaking to Mr. H. about the pictures, he had taken me for an artist The two gentle- men passed me in their gig as I was returning. These extracts may appear needlessly full and lengthy, but they are so abundant in characteristic touches that it is difficult to deal with them more succinctly. They show, what there is nothing else to show, Mr. Hazlitt's peculiar temperament as developed by the present transaction, my grandmother's practical turn and dismissal of all sentimentality, and, at the same time, the strong affection of both of them for their child — he made the only common ground there was ever to be again, perhaps that there ever had been, * Mrs. H, had a house in the village, but Mr. H. put up at the Hut. A strangely close juxtaposition ! t At Alphington, near Exeter. 60 Mrs. HAZLITT'S 1'IAKY continued. between the husband and the wife. In the next entry there i> more about the " money." Wednesday, lOto July [1822].— Called on Mr.Eitchie, to ask if lie thought I should finish the business on Monday ? I told him that I wante I to know what was to be done about my own payment, us Mr. Hazlitt now seemed to demur to the one quarter that he had all along agreed 1", and there was also the 20/. that I was tu have as a present. He said that he was at present very much engaged in some business which would end in two days more, and that then, it' 1 was at all appre- hensive about it, lie would write to, or see, 'Sir. Hazlitt on the subject. Thursday, 11th July. — Met Mr. Hazlitt in Catherine Street, and asked him what I was to do if Mr. Gray sent in my hill to me, and he said I had nothing to do with it, for that he had paid Mr. Prentice 40?., which was nearly the whole expense for both of them. I said that was what Mr. Ritchie, to whom I had spoken about it, thought. He said Mr. Ritchie had nothing at all to do with it, and I remarked that lie was the person he had sent to me about it, and that he did not think it would finish on Monday ; and [I] asked if he had heard anything more ? He said no, but he thought it would he Monday or Tuesday ; and as soon as it was done, he wished 1 would cnnie to him to finally settle matters, as he had some tilings to say. and I told him I would. I was rather Hurried at meeting him, and totally forgot many things I wished to have said, which vexed me afterwards. MRS. HAZLITT'S DIARY CONTINUED. 61 Friday, 12th July. — On my return [from a walk to Holyrood House] I found a note from Mr. Gray, appointing next Wednesday for my attendance, and desiring a " payment of 201. towards the expense." I took it to Mr. Bell's ; he and Mr. Hazlitt went out at the back door as I went in at the front. I gave the message to Mrs. Bell, who told me Mr. Hazlitt had been to Mr. Grav's Saturday, loth July. — Met Mr. Hazlitt at the foot of my stairs, coming to me. He said that Mr. Gray was to have the money out of what he had paid Mr. Prentice I told him he need not be uneasy about meeting me in the steamboat, for I did not intend to go that way. Asked him if he thought it a good collection of pictures at Dalkeith House [this is so characteristic !] ; he said no, very poor Wednesday, 17th July. — Mr. Bell called between ten and eleven He had come, by Mr. Gray's desire, to accompany me to the court, and was himself cited as a witness. [Mrs. H. then describes going to the court, but the proceedings were pro forma, as the depositions had been arranged to be taken at Mr. Bell's private residence.] Beturned, and wrote a note to Mr. Hazlitt, to have in case he was out, saying that I would call on him at two o'clock. I left it, Saw Mr. Hazlitt at four o'clock ; he was at dinner ; but I stopped and drank tea with him. [ !] He, told me that all was done now, unless Mrs. Bell should make anv demur in the part required of her Said he would set off to London by the mail that night, though he thought he NOTES OP A.NOTHEB CONVERSATION. should 1"' detained by illness or die on the road, for he had been penned up in that house for five months .... unable to ( l" any work ; and he thought he had !<>-t the job to Italy, I'Ut to gel out of Scotland would seem like the road to paradise. I told him he had done a mod is thing in publishing what h> did in the [Xew Monthly] Ma il S rah Walker, particularly at (his ti , and that hi might be sure it would be madt use igainst him, and that < vi rybo ly in London had thought • most im\ thing, and Mr. John Hunt was a mere piece of diplomacy after all. There were n<> tears shed on either side. It was a stroke of lusi- l.-'i it pass. Maj'ora cam mus. Be was all tin'- time at work upon a second series of 'Table Talk' lor .Mr. Coll mm, to be published in one volume, uniform with the last; and of this the greater part, If not all, was completed in Edinburgh or at Etenton Inn. Berwickshire, in the presence of a great anxiety, and in an indifferent state of bodily health, between January and March, 1822. At the end of one of his letters to Mr. Tatmore, written in March, he says: — "You may tell Colburn when you see him that his work is done magnificently, to wit : — I. ' On the Know- ledge of Character,' -K) pp. II. 'Advice to a School- boy,' GO pp. III. 'On Patronage and Puffing,' 50 pp. 1 V. e id V. < On Spurzheim's Theory,' SO pp. VI. ' On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority,' 25 pp. \ i 1. 'On the Fear of Death,' 25 pp. VIII. < Burleigh House,' 25 pp. IX. '"Why Actors should not sit in the | :;.-, pp. — i n a ]l 340 pages. To do by Saturday night: — X. ' On Dreams,' 25 pp. 'On Indivi- duality,' 25 pp.— 390 pages." In this labour he found a relief and distraction from !•■- ible 'thoughts, and the exertion was, besides, a source of ways and means. Nor was this THE 'LIBERAL.' 69 the full extent of his occupation. He had other essays on the stocks, that is to say, in his head, for other people. For, in the year after his disagreement with Mr. Leigh Hunt, he received overtures from that gen- tleman to aid him in an undertaking which had been set on foot for Mr. Hunt's benefit under the auspices of Lord Byron. The undertaking was of course a literary one, and was a publication — now well known as the ' Liberal : Verse and Prose from the South.' The contributors were Mr. Hunt himself, Lord Byron, and Mr. Shelley ; and upon Shelley's death it was proposed that Mr. Hazlitt should supply his place on the periodical, it being thought doubtless that his name would be valuable and strengthening. In one of Byron's conversations with Med win, he says, " I believe I told you of a plan we had in agitation for his (Hunt's) benefit. His principal object in coming out [to Italy] was to establish a literary journal, whose name is not yet fixed. I have promised to contribute, and shall probably make it a vehicle for some occasional poems ; for instance, I mean to translate Ariosto. I was strongly advised by Tom Moore, long ago, not to have any connection with such a company as Hunt, Shelley, and Co. ; but I have pledged myself ." Co. was Mr. Hazlitt. I shall give Co.'s history of the ' Liberal ' and its projectors. "At the time that Lord Byron thought proper to join with Mr. Leigh Hunt and Mr. Shelley in the publi- ation called the 'Liberal/ 'Blackwood's Magazine' 70 i BE in • .<>i:y overflowed, as mighl be i d, with tenfold gall I bitterness; the 'John Bull' was outrageous ; and Mr. Jerdan black in the face al this unheard-of and disgraceful disunion. But who would have supposed Mr. Thomas M *e and Mr. Bobhouse, tin ach friends ami partisans of the people, should also 1..- thrown into almost hysterical agonies of well-bred horror at the coalition between their noble ami ignoble [uaintance, between the patrician ami the 'news- paper-man.' Mr. Moore darted backwards ami forwards from Coldbath Fields Prison to the Examiner office, from Mr. Longman's to Mr. Murray's shop, in a state of ridiculous trepidation, to see whal was to In- dour to prevenl this degradation of the aristocracy of letters, this indecent encroachment of plebeian pretensions, this nmlne extension of patronage and compromise of privilege. : lie Tories were shocked that Lord Bvron should grace the popular side by his direct countenance and istance — the Whigs were shocked that he should share his confidence and counsels with any one who did not unite the double recommendations of birth and genius — but tlr mselves. Mr. Moore hud lived so long among the great thai he fancied himself one of thein, and regarded the indignity as done to himself. Mr. Ilobhouse had lately been black-balled by the clubs, and must feel particularly sore and tenacious on the score of public opinion. •• Mr. Shelley's father, however, was an older baronet than Mr. Eobhouse's. Mr. Leigh Hunt was Mo the full OF 'THE LIBERAL. 71 as genteel a man ' as Mr. Moore, in birth, appearance, and education. The pursuits of all four were the same — the Muse, the public favour, and the public good. Mr. Moore was himself invited to assist in the under- taking, but he professed an utter aversion to, and warned Lord Byron against having any concern with joint publications, as of a very neutralizing and levelling description. He might speak from experience. He had tried his hand at that Ulysses' bow of critics and poli- ticians, the ' Edinburgh Review,' though his secret had never transpired. Mr. Hobhouse, too, had written ' Illustrations of Childe Harold ' (a sort of partnership concern) — yet, to quash the publication of the 'Liberal,' he seriously proposed that his noble friend should write once a week, in his own name, in the Examiner — the ' Liberal ' scheme, he was afraid, might succeed : the newspaper one, he knew, could not. " I have been whispered that the member for West- minster (for whom I once gave an ineffectual vote) has also conceived some distaste for me. I do not know why, except that I was at one time named as the writer of the famous ' Trecenti Juravimus Letter,' to Mr. Can- ning, which appeared in the Examiner, and was after- wards suppressed. He might feel the disgrace of such a supposition : I confess I did not feel the honour. "The cabal, the bustle, the significant hints, the confidential rumours were „at the height when, after Mr. Shelley's death, I was invited to take part in this obnoxious publication (obnoxious alike to friend and foe) ; and when the ' Essay on the Spirit of Monarchy ' I _ •J BIBTOBI 01 appeared (which must indeed have operated like a bombshell thrown into the eateries that Mr. Moore frequented, as well as those that he had left) this gen- tleman wrote off to Lord Byron to say that ' there was a tainl in the ' Liberal, 1 and that If should lose no time in getting out of it.' And tin's from Mr. Moore to Lord Byron — the last of whom had just involved the publica- tion, against which he was cautioned as having a taint in it, in a prosecution for libel by his ' Vision of Judg- ment :' and tin' first of whom had scarcely written any- thing all his life that had not a taint in it. " It i< true that the Holland House party might be somewhat ered by a jeu d' esprit that set their Blackstone and De Lolme theories at defiance, and that they could as little write as answer. But it was not that. "Mr. Moore also complained that 'I had spoken ii'ust " Lalla Rookh," though he had just before sent his " Fudge Family." Still it was not that. "But at the time he sent me that very delightful and spirited publication, my little hark was seen 'hull- ing on the flood' in a kind of dubious twilight; and it was not known whether I might not prove a vessel of gallant trim. Mr. Blackwood had not then directed his Grub-street lattery against me; but as soon as the ■, Mr. Moore was willing to 'whistle me down the wind." and let me prey at fortune: not that I | roved haggard,' but the contrary. It is sheer cowardice and want of heart. The sole object of this Bet is not to stem the tide of prejudice and falsehood. THE ' LIBERAL.' 73 but to get out of the way themselves. The instant another is assailed (however unjustly), instead of stand- ing manfully by him, they cut the connection as fast as possible " In another place he takes occasion to inquire whether " Mr. Moore is bound to advise a noble poet to get as fast as possible out of a certain publication, lest he should not be able to give an account, at Holland or at Lansdowne House, how his friend Lord B[yron] had associated himself with his friend L[eigh] H[unt] ? Is he afraid," Mr. Hazlitt asks at the same time, " that the ' Spirit of Monarchy ' will eclipse the ' Fables for the Holy Alliance ' in virulence and plain speaking ?" The ' Liberal ' lived into the fourth number, and Mr. Hazlitt contributed to it five papers : ' My First Acquaintance with Poets,' ' Arguing in a Circle,' ' On the Scotch Character,' ' Pulpit Oratory,' and ' On the Spirit of Monarchy.' I find attributed to him under 1822 an octavo volume called ' A Selection of Speeches Delivered at Several County Meetings, in the years 1820 and 1821,' but I do not believe it to be his. The advertisement, which is the only original part of the book, is not in his manner, and he was away from England from January to July, 1822. It happened at the beginning of December the same year, within a few months after the close of the Scottish business, that his friend Mr. Patmore heard there was to i 1 GOING TO THE FIGHT. be a grand prize-fight at a place in Berkshire, on the L lth, between Bickman and Neate; and he half-jocu- larly suggested to my grandfather thai he should run down with him, and do an ace unl of the thing ew Monthly Magazine.' Bu1 Mr. 1 1 a/1 it t took him more r< adily at his word than he had dreamt of. The facl was, thai getting an article out of the matter was a ci osideration which always weighed more or less; and then he had never seen a g 1 fight. Ee spoke to Colburn aboul it, and Colburn >eemed to entertain the notion : bo he determined to make a day, or rather two, of it. But somehow or other, he and Patmore, when it came to the tinn — the afternoon of the 10th — missed each other, and Mr. lla/litt had to find another companion, his friend Joseph Parkes, Esq. Fights in those days were spectacles from which even the author of ' Elia' would not have shrunk. Nothing which I could ever put together would approach his own narrative of the adventure, as I propose to give it, divested only of certain particulars which possess no permanent interest. The incident itself, as it is related below, is intrinsically valuable, since it exhibits the writer in one of his healthier moods, when he "was no longer the " poor creature " he liked occasionally, in fits of gloom, to proclaim himself (such a cry was sure never to lack a chorus) ; and it would have astonished Lamb's friends, Lamb and his biographer included, to have seen him step out along the road, and snuff up the country air. me. hazlitt's nahkative. 75 " Where there's a will there's a ivay, I said so to myself, as I walked down Chancery Lane, about half- past six o'clock on Monday the 10th of December [1822], to inquire at Jack Eandall's where the fight the next day was to be; and I found 'the proverb' nothing ' musty ' in the present instance. I was deter- mined to see this fight, come what would, and see it I did, in great style. It was my first fight, yet it more than answered my expectations. Ladies ! it is to you I dedicate this description ; nor let it seem out of charac- ter for the fair to notice the exploits of the brave. . . . " I was going down Chancery Lane, thinking to ask at Jack Eandall's where the fight was to be, when looking through the glass door of the Hole in the Wall, I heard a gentleman asking the same question at Mrs. Randall, as the author of ' Waverley ' would express it. Now Mrs. Randall stood answering the gentleman's question with the authenticity of the lady of the Champion of the Light Weights. Thinks I, I'll wait till this person comes out, and learn from him how it is. For, to say a truth, I was not fond of going into this house of call for heroes and philosophers, ever since the owner of it (for Jack is no gentleman) threatened once upon a time to kick me out of doors for wanting a mutton-chop at- his hospitable board, when the con- queror in thirteen battles was more full of Hue ruin than of good manners. 1 was the more mortified at this repulse, inasmuch as I had heard Mr. James Simpkins, hosier in the Strand, one day when the character of the Hole in the Wall was brought in 76 MB. hazlitt's nabbative. question, observe — 'The house is a very good house, and the company quite genteel: I have been there myself!' Remembering this unkind treatment of mine host, to which mine hostess was also a party, and not wishing to put her in unquiet thoughts at a time jubi- lant like the present. I waited at the door; when who should issue forth but my friend Joe Toms,* and turning suddenly up Chancery Lane with the quick jerk and impatient stride which distinguishes a lover of the Fancy, I said, 'I'll be hanged if that fellow is not ing to the fight, and is on his way to get me to go with him.' So it proved in effect, and we agreed to adjourn to my lodgings to discuss measures with that cordiality which makes old friends like new, and new friends like old, on great occasions Toms and I, though we seldom meet, were an alter idem on this memorahle occasion, and had not an idea that we did not candidly impart; and 'so carelessly did we fleet the time,' that I wish no better, when there is another fight, than to have him. for a companion on my journey down ■• Joe Toms and I could not settle about the method of going down. He said there was a caravan, he under- stood, to start from Tom Belcher's at two, which would !_ r " there right out and back again the next day. Xow 1 never travel all night, and I said I should get a cast to Newbury by one of the mails. Joe swore the thing was impossible, and I could only answer that I had made- up my mind to it. In short, he seemed to me * The late Mr. Joseph Parkes. ME. HAZLITT'S NARRATIVE. l"i to waver, said lie only came to see if I was going, had letters to write, a cause coming on the day after, and faintly said at parting (for I was bent on setting out that moment) — ' Well, we meet at Philippi !' I made the best of my way to Piccadilly. The mail-coach stand was bare. ' They are all gone,' said I. ' This is always the way with me — in the instant I lose the future — if I had not stayed to pour out that last cup of tea, I should have been just in time ;' and cursing my folly and ill-luck together, without inquiring at the coach-office whether the mails were gone or not, I walked on in despite, and to punish my own dilatoriness and want of determination. At any rate, I would not turn back : I might get to Hounslow, or perhaps farther, to be on my road the next morning. I passed Hyde Park Corner (my Rubicon), and trusted to fortune. Suddenly I heard the clattering of a Brentford stage, and the fight rushed full upon my fancy. I argued (not unwisely) that even a Brentford coachman was better company than my own thoughts (such as they were just then), and at his invitation mounted the box with him. I immediately stated my case to him — namely, my quarrel with myself for missing the Bath or Bristol mail, and my determination to get on in consequence as j^ell as I could, without any disparage- ment or insulting comparison between longer or shorter stages. It is a maxim with me that stage-coaches, and consequently stage-coachmen, are respectable in pro- portion to the distance they have to travel ; so I said nothing on that subject to my Brentford friend. Any 7^ Mi;. BAZLITT'S STABBATIVE. incipient tendency to an abstract proposition, or (as he might have construed it) to a personal reflection of this kind, was however nipped in the bud; for I had no mer declared indignantly that I had missed the mails, than he flatly denied that they were gone along; and lo ! at the instant three of them drove by in rapid, pro- voking, orderly succession, as if they would devour the ground before them If I had stopped to inquire at th." White Horse CVllar, which would not have taken me a minute, 1 should now have been driving down the road in all the dignified unconcern and ideal perfection of mechanical conveyance. The Bath mail I had set my mind upon, and I had missed it, as I miss every- thing else, by my own absurdity, in putting the will for the deed, and aiming at ends without employing means. 'Sir,' said he of the Brentford, 'the Bath mail will be up presently, my brother-in-law drives it, and I will engage to stop him if there is a place empty.' I almost doubted my good genius ; but, sure enough, up it drove like lightning, and stopped directly at the call of the Brentford Jehu. I would not have believed this pos- le, but the brother-in-law of a mail-coach driver is himself do mean man. I was transferred without loss of time from the top of one coach to that of the other ; desired the guard to pay my fare to the Brentford coachman for me, as I had no change; was accommo- dated v ith a great-coat ; put up my umbrella to keep off a drizzling mist, and we began to cut through the air lik<- an arrow. The milestones disappeared one after another; the rain kept off; Tom Thurtell the trainer MR. hazlitt's narrative. 79 sat before nie on the coach-box, with whom I exchanged civilities as a gentleman going to the fight ; the passion that had transported me an hour before was subdued to pensive regret and conjectural musing on the next day's battle ; I was promised a place inside at Reading, and upon the whole I thought myself a lucky fellow. Such is the force of imagination! On the outside of any other 'coach on the 10th of December, with a Scotch mist drizzling through the cloudy moonlight air, I should have been cold, comfortless, impatient, and no doubt wet through ; but seated on the royal mail, I felt warm and comfortable, the air did me good, the ride did me good, I was pleased with the progress we had made, and confident that all would go well through the journey. When I got inside at Eeadiug I found Thurtell and a'' stout valetudinarian, whose costume bespoke him one of the Fancy, and who had risen from a three months' sick bed to get into the mail to see the fight. They were intimate, and we fell into a lively discourse " 80 CHAPTEE YIII. 1822. The Fight concluded. " We talked the hours away merrily. He liad faith in surgery, for he had had three ribs set right, that had been broken in a turn-up at Belcher's; hut thought physicians old women, for they had no antidote in their catalogue for brandy. An indigestion is an excellent common-jilace for two people that never met before. By way of ingratiating myself, I told him the story of my doctor, who, on my earnestly representing to him that I thought his regimen had done me harm, assured me that the whole pharmacopeia contained nothing comparable to the prescription he had given me ; and, as a proof of its undoubted efficacy, said that ' he had had one gentleman with my complaint under his hands for the last fifteen years.' This anecdote made my companion shake the rough sides of his three great- coats with boisterous laughter ; and Thurtell, starting out of his sleep, swore he knew how the fight would go, for he had had a dream about it. Sure enough the rascal told as how the three first rounds went off, but his dream,' like others, ' denoted a foregone con- GOING TO THE FIGHT. 81 elusion.' He knew his men. The moon now rose in silver state, and I ventured, with some hesitation, to point out this object of placid beauty, with the blue serene beyond, to the man of science, to which his ear he 'seriously inclined,' the more as it gave promise d'un beau jour for the morrow, and showed the ring undrenched by envious showers, arrayed in sunny smiles. Just then, all going on well, I thought on my friend Toms, whom I had left behind, and said, innocently, ■ There was a blockhead of a fellow I left in town, who said there was no possibility of getting down by the mail, and talked of going by a caravan from Belcher's at two in the morning, after he had written some letters.' ' Why,' said he of the lappels, ' I should not wonder if that was the very person we saw running about like mad from one coach-door to another, and asking if any one had seen a friend of his, a gentle- man going to the fight, whom he had missed stupidly enough by staying to write a note.' ' Pray, sir/ said my fellow-traveller, ' had he a plaid cloak on ?' — ' Why, no,' said I, ' not at the time I left him, but he very well might afterwards, for he offered to lend me one.' The plaid cloak and the letter decided the thing. Joe, sure enough, was in the Bristol mail, which preceded us by about fifty yards^ This was droll enough. We had now but a few miles to our place of destination, and the first thing I did on alighting at Newbury, both coaches stopping at the same time, was to call out, ' Pray, is there a gentleman in that mail of the name of Toms ?' — ' No,' said Joe, borrowing something of the vein of VOL. II. G 82 BENIGHTED AT NEWBURY. Gilpin, 'lor I have just got out. Well!' says he, • this i- Lucky : bul you don't know how vexed I was to mi— you; for,' added he, lowering his voire, 'do you kin.w wheu I Left you I went to Belcher's to ask about the caravan, and Mrs. Belcher said, very obligingly, she could'nt tell about that, but there were two gentlemen who had taken places by the mail and were gone on in a landau, and she could frank us. It's a pity I didn't meet with you; we could then have gone down for nothing. But mum's the word! It's the devil for any one i" tell me a secret, for it's sure to come out in print. I do not care so much to gratify a friend, but the public i';ir is too great a temptation to me. " Our present business was to get beds and a supper at mi inn; but this was no easy task. The public-houses wire full, and where you saw a light at a private house, and people poking their heads out of the casement to see what was going on, they instantly put them in and shut the window the moment you seemed advancing with a suspicious overture for accommodation. Our guard and coachman thundered away at the outer gate of the Crown for some time without effect — such was the greater noise within — and when the doors were un- barred, and we got admittance, we found a party assem- bled in the kit •hen round a good hospitable fire, some sli eping, others drinking, others talking on politics and on the fight. A tall English yeoman (something like Mathews in the face, and quite as great a wag) — A lusty man to ben an abbot able — BENIGHTED AT NEWBURY. 83 was making such a prodigious noise about rent and taxes, and the price of corn now and formerly, that he had prevented us from being heard at the gate. The first thing I heard him say was to a shuffling fellow who wanted to be off a bet for a shilling glass of brandy and water — ' Confound it, man, don't be insipid /' Thinks I, that is a good phrase. It was a good omen. He kept it up so all night, nor flinched with the ap- proach of morning. He was a fine fellow, with sense, wit, and spirit, a hearty body and a joyous mind, free- spoken, frank, convivial — one of that true English breed that went with Harry the Fifth to the siege of Harfleur — ' standing like greyhounds in the slips,' &c. We ordered tea and eggs (beds were soon found to be out of the question), and this fellow's conversation was sauce piquante. It did one's heart good to see him brandish his oaken towel and to hear him talk. He made mincemeat of a drunken, stupid, red-faced, quarrel- some, froivsy farmer, whose nose ' he moralized into a thousand similes,' making it out a firebrand like Bar- dolph's. ' I'll tell you what, my friend,' says he, ' the landlady has only to keep you here to save fire and candle. If one was to touch your nose, it would go off like a piece of charcoal.' At this the other only grinned like an idiot, the sole variety in his purple face being his little peering grey eyes and yellow teeth ; called for another glass, swore he would not stand it ; and after many attempts to provoke his humorous anta- gonist to sinoie combat, which the other turned off (after working him up to a ludicrous pitch of choler) >1 TUK WALK FROM NEWBURY. with greal adroitness, he fell quietly asleep with a glass of liquor in his hand, which he could not lift to his head. His laughing persecutor made a speech over him, and turning to the opposite side of the room, where they were all sleeping in the midst of this 'loud and furious fun,' said, 'There's a scene, by G — d, for Ho- garth to paint I think he and Shakspeare were our two best nun at copying life.' This confirmed me in my good opinion of him. Hogarth, Shakspeare, and Nature were just enough for him (indeed for any man) to know. 1 said, ' You read Cobbett, don't you ? At least/ says I, ' you talk just as well as he writes.' He seemed to doubt this: But I said, 'We have an hour to spare : if you'll get pen, ink, and paper, and keep on talking, I'll write down what you say ; and if it doesn't make a capital ' Political Register,' I'll forfeit my head. You have kept me alive to-night, however. I don't know what I should have done without you.' He did not dislike this view of the thing, nor my asking if he was not about the size of Jem Belcher ; and told me soon afterwards, in the confidence of friendship, that 1 the circumstance which had given him nearly the greatest concern in his life was Cribb's beating Jem after he had lost his eye by racket-playing.' " The morning dawns ; that dim but yet clear light appears, which weighs like solid bars of metal on the yelids; the guests drop down from their chambers one by one — but it was too late to think of Log to bed now (the clock was on the stroke of seven) ; we had nothing for it but to find a barber's (the pole that ARRIVAL UPON THE SCENE. 85 glittered in the morning sun lighted us to his shop), and then a niDe miles' march to Hungerford. The day was fine, the sky was blue, the mists were retiring from the marshy ground, the path was tolerably dry, the sitting- up all night had not clone us much harm — at least the cause was good ; we talked of this and that with ami- cable difference, roving and sipping of many subjects, but still invariably we returned to the fight. At length, a mile to the left of Hungerford, on a gentle eminence, we saw the ring, surrounded by covered carts, gigs, and carriages, of which hundreds had passed us on the road. Toms gave a youthful shout, and we hastened down a narrow lane to the scene of action. " Header, have you ever seen a fight ? If not, you have a pleasure to come, at least if it is a fight like that between the Gas-man and Bill Neate. The crowd was very great when we arrived on the spot ; open carriages were coming up, with streamers flying and music play- ing ; and the country-people were pouring in over hedge and ditch in all directions, to see their hero beat or be beaten. The odds were still on Gas, but only about five to four. Gully had been down to try Neate, and had backed him considerably, which was a damper to the sanguine confidence of the adverse party. About two hundred thousand pounds were pending " The best men were always the best behaved. Jem Belcher, the Game Chicken (before whom the Gas-man could not have lived), were civil, silent men. So is Cribb, so is Tom Belcher, the most elegant of sparrers, and not a man for every one to take by the nose. I THE WEATHEB. enlarged on this topic in the mail (while Thurtell was asleep), and Baid very wisely (as I thought) that im- pertinence was ;i pari of no profession. "The day, as I have said, was line tor a December morning. The grass was wet, and the ground miry, and ploughed tip with multitudinous feet, except that within the ring itself there was a spol of virgin-green closed in and onprofaned by vulgar tread, that shone with daz- zling brightness in the midday sun. For it was now noon, and we had an hour to wait. This is the trying time. It is then the heart sickens, as you think what the two champions are about, and how short a time will determine their fate. After the first blow is struek there is no opportunity for nervous apprehensions; you are swallowed up in the immediate interest of the scene. "I found it so as I felt the sun's rays clinging to my back, and saw the white wintry clouds sink below the verge of the horizon The swells were parad- ing in their white box-coats, the outer ring was cleared with some bruises on the heads and shins of the rustic assembly (for the cockneys had been distanced by the sixty-six miles) ; the time drew near; I had got a good !: ;i bustle a buzz, ran through the crowd; and from the opposite side entered Neate, between his seciiud and bottle-holder. He rolled along, swathed in his loose great-coat, his knock-knees bending under his huge bulk; and. with a modest cheerful air, threw his hat into the ring. He then just looked round, and began quietly to undress; when from the other side there was a similar rush and an opening made, and the THE FIGHT COMMENCED. 87 Gas-man came forward with a conscious air of anticipated triumph, too much like the cock-of-the-walk All was ready. They tossed up for the sun, and the Gas- man won. They were led up to the scratch — shook hands, and went at it. " In the first round every one thought it was all over. After making play a short time, the Gas-man flew at his adversary like a tiger, struck five blows in as many seconds, three first, and then following him as he staggered back, two more, right and left, and down he fell, a mighty ruin. There was a shout, and I said, ' There is no standing this.' Neate seemed like a life- less lump of flesh and bone, round which the Gas-man's blows played with the rapidity of electricity or lightning, and you imagined he would only be lifted up to be knocked down again They met again, and Neate seemed, not cowed, but particularly cautious. I saw his teeth clenched together and his brows knit close against the sun. He held out both his arms at full length straight before him, like two sledge-hammers, and raised his left an inch or tw T o higher. The Gas-man could not get over this guard — they struck mutually and fell, but without advantage on either side. It was the same in the next round; but the balance of power was thus restored — the fate of the battle was suspended. No one could tell how it would end. This was the only moment in which opinion was- divided ; for, in the next, the Gas-man aiming a mortal blow at his adversary's neck, with his right hand, and failing from the length he had to reach, the other returned it with his left at 88 Till. GAS-MAN LOSES GROUND. full swing, planted ;i tremendous blow on his cheek-bone and eyebrow, and made a red ruin of that side of his face. The Gas-man went down, and there was another shout — a mar of triumph as the waves of fortune rolled tumultuously from side to side. This was a settler. Hickman got up, and 'grinned horrible a ghastly smile,' yet he was evidently dashed in his opinion of himself; it was the first time he had ever been so punished ; fill one side of his face was perfect scarlet, and his right eye was closed in dingy blackness, as he advanced to the fight, less confident, but still determined. " After one or two rounds, not receiving another such remembrancer, he rallied and went at it with his form* r impetuosity. But in vain. His strength had been Aveakened — his blows could not tell at such a distance — he was obliged to fling himself at his adversary, and could not strike from his feet ; and almost as regularly as he flew at him with his right hand, Neate warded the blow, or drew back out of its reach, and felled him with the return of his left. There was little cautious sparring — no half-hits — no tapping and trifling, none of the petit-maitreship of the art — they were almost all knock-down blows — the fight was a good stand-up fight "From this time forward the event became more certain every round; and about the twelfth it seemed as if it must have been over. Hickman generally stood with his back to me ; but in the scuffle he had changed positions, ami Xeate just then made a tremendous lunge at him, and hit him full in the face. It was doubtful ME. HAZLITT ASKS CRIBB HIS OPINION. 89 whether he would fall backwards or forwards ; he hung suspended for a second or two, and then fell back, throwing his hands in the air, and with his face lifted up to the sky. I never saw anything more terrific than his aspect just before he fell. All traces of life, of natural expression, were gone from him. His face was like a human skull, a death's head, spouting blood Yet he fought on after this for several rounds, still striking the first desperate blow, and Neate standing on the defensive, and using the same cautious guard to the last, as if he had still all his work to do ; and it was not till the Gas-man was so stunned in the seventeenth or eighteenth round that his senses forsook him, and he could not come to time, that the battle was declared over. When the Gas-man came to himself, the first words he uttered were, ' Where am I ? What is the matter?' .... "When it was over I asked Cribb if he did not think it was a good one ? He said, ' Pretty well /' The carrier-pigeons now mounted into the air, and one of them flew with the news of her husband's victory to the bosom of Mrs. Neate. Alas, for Mrs. Hickman ! 11 Mais au revoir, as Sir Fopling Flutter says. I went down with Toms ; I returned with Jack Pigott [P. G. Patmore], wjiom I met on the ground. Toms is a rattle-brain ; Pigott is a sentimentalist. Now, under favour, I am a sentimentalist too — therefore I say nothing, but that the interest of the excursion did not flag as I came back. Pigott and I marched along the causeway leading from Hungerford to Newbury, now 90 KETl UNINC HOME. observing the effect of a brilliant sun on the tawny meads or moss-coloured cottages, now exulting in the fight, dow digressing to some topic of general and elegant Literature. My friend was dressed in character for the occasion, or like one of the Fancy; that is, with a double portion of great-coats, clogs, and overhauls; and just as we had agreed with a couple of country lads to carry Lis superfluous wearing- apparel to the next town we were overtaken by a return post-chaise, into which I got, Pigott preferring a seat on the bar. There were two strangers already in th«' chaise, and on their observing they supposed I had been to the fight, I said I had, and concluded they had done the same. They appeared, however, a little shy and sore on the subject ; and it was not till after several hints dropped, and questions put, that it turned out that thev had missed it. One of these friends had under- taken to drive the other there in his gig: they had set out, to make sure work, the day before at three in the afternoon. The owner of the one-horse vehicle scorned to ask his way, and drove right on to Bagshot, instead of turning off at Hounslow : there they stopped all night, and set off the next day across the country to Reading, from whence they took coach, and got down within a mile or two of Hungerford just half an hour after the fight was over. This might be safely set down as one of the miseries of human life. We parted with these two gentlemen who had been to see the fight, but had returned as they went, at Wolhampton, where we were promised beds (an irresistible temptation, for PUT UP AT WOLHAMPTON. 91 Pigott had passed the preceding night at Hungerford as we had done at Newbury) ; and we turned into an old bow-windowed parlour with a carpet and a snug fire ; and after devouring a quantity of tea, toast, and eggs, sat down to consider, during an hour of philosophic leisure, what we should have for supper. In the midst of an Epicurean deliberation between a roasted fowl and mutton chops with mashed potatoes, we were inter- rupted by an inroad of Goths and Vandals Pigott withdrew from the smoke and noise into another room, and left me to dispute the point with them for a couple of hours sans intermission by the dial. The next morn- ing we rose refreshed ; and on observing that Jack had a pocket volume in his hand, in which he read in the intervals of our discourse, I inquired what it was, and learned to my particular satisfaction that it was a volume of the ' New Heloise.' Ladies, after this, will you contend that a love for the Fancy is incompatible with the cultivation of sentiment ? We jogged on as before, my friend setting me up in a genteel drab great- coat and green silk handkerchief (which I must say became me exceedingly) ; and after stretching our legs for a few miles, and seeing Jack Eandall, Ned Turner, and Scroggins pass on the top of one of the Bath coaches, we engaged with the driver of the second to take us to London for the usual fee. I got inside, and found three other passengers' One of them was an old gentleman with an aquiline nt>se, powdered hair, and a pigtail, and who looked as if he had played many a rubber at the Bath rooms. I said to myself, he is very 92 CONVERSATION IN THE COACH. like Mr. Windham ; I wish he would enter into conver- sation, thai I might hear what fine observations would come from those finely-turned features. However, nothing passed, till, stopping to dine at Reading, some inquiry was made by the company about the fight, and I gave (as the rein lei- may believe) an eloquent and animated description of it. When we got into the coach again the old gentleman, after a graceful exor- dium, said he had, when a boy, been to a fight between the famous Broughton and George Stevenson, who was called the Fighting Coachman, in the year 1770, with the late Mr. Windham. This beginning flattered the spirit of prophecy within me, and riveted my attention. He went on — ' George Stevenson was coachman to a friend of my father's. He was an old man when I saw him some years afterwards. He took hold of his own arm and said, " there was muscle here once, but now it is no more than this young gentleman's." He added, "well, no matter ; I have been here long, I am willing to go hence, and I hope I have done no more harm than another man." Once,' said my unknown companion, ' I asked him if he had ever beat Broughton ? He said Yes ; that he had fought with him three times, and the last time he fairly beat him, though the world did not allow it. " I'll tell you how it was, master. When the seconds lifted us up in the last round, we were so ex- hausted that neither of us could stand, and we fell upon one another, and as Master Broughton fell uppermost, the mob gave it in his favour, and he was said to have won the battle. But the fact w r as, that as his second ARRIVAL IN TOWN. 93 (John Cuthbert) lifted him up, he said to him, ' I'll fight no more, I've had enough ;' which," says Steven- son, " you know gave me the victory. And to prove to you that this was the case, when John Cuthbert was on his death-bed, and they asked him if there was anything on his mind which he wished to confess, he answered, ' Yes, that there was one thing he wished to set right, for that certainly Master Stevenson won that last fight with Master Broughton ; for he whispered him as he lifted him up in the last round of all that he had had enough.' ' This,' said the Bath gentleman, ' was a bit of human nature ;' and I have written this account of the fight on purpose that it might not be lost to the world. He also stated, as a proof of the candour of mind in this class of men, that Stevenson acknowledged that Broughton could have beat him in his best clay ; but that he (Broughton) was getting old in their last ren- counter. When we stopped in Piccadilly I wanted to ask the gentleman some questions about the late Mr. Windham, but had not courage. I got out, resigned my coat and green silk handkerchief to Pigott (loth to part with these ornaments of life), and walked home in high spirits. " P.S. Toms called upon me the next day to ask me if I did not think the fight was a complete thing ? I said I thought it was." Colburn had spoken to some of his friends of the paper on the fight between Neate and the Gas-man as forthcoming, and so had Mr. Hazlitt. Many were 94 PUBLICATION OF THE "FIGHT." looking forward to its appearance in the Magazine, and into tin' Magazine it went, under the signature of Phantasies. Bnt 31 r. Campbell, the editor of the 'New Monthly Magazine,' and Mr. Redding, the sub-editor, disapproved of the article ; and the latter gentleman has emptied himself in his 'Recollections' of some remarks upon the matter, which are not worth repeat- ing. The article weut in because, it would appear, " Colbarn had spoken of it to several persons, and Eazlitt's friends were expecting it." The fact seems to have been that Campbell never actively interfered in the editorship, and that Mr. Colburn had more common sense than Mr. Redding. Campbell's animosity against Mr. Hazlitt was very si rang and equally notorious. Mr. Redding says that it arose from Mr. Hazlitt having charged Campbell with a plagiarism in his line about angel-visits. 95 CHAPTER IX. 1823. Visit to the principal English Picture-Galleries — Publication of ' Characteristics ' — Lamb's Letter to Southey. During the year 1823 Mr. Hazlitt continued to con- tribute to the ' London Magazine,' the ' Edinburgh Review,' the Examiner, and the ' Liberal.' His pen was therefore in full employment. His paper in the ' Edinburgh ' was the ' Periodical Press ;' and among his articles in the Examiner I must mention particularly an 'Essay on Rochefoucauld,' which forms, in fact, an introduction and companion to a little volume which he published this year, with Simpkin and Marshall, under the title of ' Characteristics in the Manner of Rochefoucauld's Maxims.' Mr. Hazlitt accounts for the undertaking by saying that he had been perusing Rochefoucauld, and was inspired with a wish^to attempt something on a similar plan. He succeeded pretty well in a few, and the work grew under his hands. It passed through three editions. It came out anonymously, and the author says that Mr. Jerdan, not knowing whose it was, praised it in the ' Literary Gazette.' 96 lamb's letteb to southet. The Tory writers were still very hitter in their language towards Mr. Hunt and Mr. lla/.litt. Tin; tragical duel between Christie ;ni Bpeaking of one of the scholars of Edward Alleyn's foundation : — " He stirs not — he still pores upon his book ; and as he reads, a slight hectic flush passes over his cheek, for he sees the letters that compose the word fame flitter on the page, and his eyes swim, and he thinks that he will one day write a book, and have his name repeated by thousands of readers ; and assume a certain signature, and write essays and criticisms in a London magazine, as a consummation of felicity scarcely to be believed ! " Come hither, thou poor little fellow, and let us change places with thee, if thou wilt ; here, take the pen, and finish this article, and sign what name you please to it ; so that we may but change our dress for yours, and sit shivering in the sun, and con over our little task, and feed poor, and lie hard, and be con- tented and happy, and think what a fine thing it is to be an author, and dream of immortality, and sleep o' nights." Thus he apostrophizes one of the celebrated pictures in the Stafford (now the Bridgewater) Gallery:— STOURHEAD. 99 " Thou, oil ! divine ' Bath of Diana,' with deep azure dyes, with roseate hues, spread by the hand of Titian, art still there upon the wall, another, yet the same that thou Avert five-and-twenty years ago And there that fine passage stands in Antony and Cleopatra as we read it long ago with exulting eyes in Paris, after puzzling over a tragedy of Racine's, and cried aloud, ' Our Shakespeare was also a poet !' " These feelings are dear to us at the time, and they come back unimpaired, heightened, mellowed, whenever we choose to go back to them." Speaking of his visit to Lord Grosvenor's pictures, he says : ■" We must go through our account of these pictures as they start up in our memory, not according to the order of their arrangement, for want of a proper set of memorandums. Our friend, Mr. Gummow, of Cleveland House, had a nice little neatly-bound duodecimo cata- logue, of great use as a vade-mecum to occasional visitants or absent critics — but here we have no such advantage ; and to take notes before company is a thing that we abhor : it has a look of pilfering something from the pictures " Stourhead, the seat of Sir Eichard Colt Hoare, did not answer our expectations. But Stourton, the village where it stands, made up for our disappointment. After passing the park-gate, which is a beautiful and vener- able relic, you descend into Stourton by a sharp-winding declivity, almost like going underground, between high hedges of laurel trees, and with an expanse of woods 100 1.1 RLEIGH NOW AND OF OLD. and water spread beneath The inn is like a modernized guard-house; the village church stands on a lawn without any enclosure; a row of cottages, facing it. with their whitewashed walls and Haunting honey- suckles, are neatness ilsrlt'. .... Then- is one master- piece of colouring by Paul Veronese, a naked child with a dog On praising this picture (which we always do when we like a thing) we were told it had been criticised by a great judge, Mr. Beckford of Fonthill, who had found fault with the execution, as too coarse and muscular. We do not wonder, it is not like his Own turnery-ware ! . . . . "liurleigli! thy groves are leafless, thy walls are naked — And dull cold winter does inhabit here. The yellow evening rays gleam through thy fretted Gothic windows ; but I only feel the rustling of withered branches strike chill to my breast ; it was not so twenty years ago. Thy groves were leafless then as now ; it was the middle of winter twice that I visited there before ; but the lark mounted in the sky, and the sun smote my youthful blood with its slant ray, and the ploughman whistled as he drove his team afield. . . . All is still the same, like a petrifaction of the mind, the same tilings in the same places; but their effect is not the same upon me. I am twenty years the worse for wear and tear. "What is become of the never-ending studious thoughts that brought their own reward, or promised good to mankind ? of the tears that started w< lcome and unbidden ? of the sighs that whispered HIS LAST VISIT THE11E. 101 future peace ? of the smiles that shone, not in my face indeed, but that cheered my heart, and made a sunshine there, when all was gloom around ? That fairy vision — that invisible glory, by which I was once attended — ushered into life, has left my side, and ' faded to the light of common day,' and I now see what is, or has been, not what may be, hid in Time's bright circle and golden chaplet. " Perhaps this is the characteristic difference between youth and a later period of life — that we, by degrees, learn to take things more as we find them, call them more by their right names ; that we feel the warmth of summer, but the winter's cold as well ; that we see beauties, but can spy defects in the fairest face, and no longer look at everything through the genial atmo- sphere of our own existence " The second time [circa 1803] I passed along the road that skirts Burleigh Park, the morning was dank, and ' ways were mire.' I saw and felt it not ; my mind was otherwise engaged. Ah ! thought I, there is that fine old head by Eembrandt ; there, within those cold grey walls, the painter of old age is enshrined, immor- talized in some of his inimitable works ! The name of Eembrandt lives in the fame of him who stamped it with renown, while the name of Burleigh is kept up by the present owner. An artist survives in the issue of his brain to all posterity, a lord is nothing without the issue of his body lawfully begotten, and is lost in a long line of illustrious ancestors. So much higher is genius than rank, such is the difference between fame and 102 IX THE TAST. title! A great name in art lasts for centuries; it requires twenty generations of a noble house to keep alive tin; memory of the first founder for the same Length of time. So I reasoned, and was not a little in-mid (if my dis'-overy. " In this dreaming mood, dreaming of deathless works and deathless names, I went on to Peterborough, passing, as it were, under an archway of Fame, And still walking under, Found some new matter to look up and wonder. I had business there, I will not say what.* I could at this time do nothing. I could not write a line, I could not draw a stroke In words, in looks, in deeds, I was no better than a changeling "Why then do I set so much value on my existence formerly ? Oh God ! that I could be but one day, one hour, nay, but for an instant (to feel it in all the pleni- tude of unconscious bliss, and take one long last linger- ing draught of that full brimming cup of thoughtless freedom) what then I was, that I might, as in a trance, a waking dream, hear the hoarse murmur of the barge- men, as the Minster tower [of Peterborough] appeared in the dim twilight, come up from the willowy stream, sounding low and underground like the voice of the bittern ; that I might paint that field opposite the window where I lived, and feel that there Mas a green, * I believe that the Loftus family were originally from Peterborough, tmd that my grandfather's motive was a desire to see his mother's birthplace. He alludes to this a little farther on. A PILGRIM TO HIS MOTHER'S HOME. 103 dewy moisture in the tone, beyond my pencil's reach ? but thus gainiug almost a new sense, and watching the bustle of new objects without me ; that I might stroll down Peterborough bank (a winter's day) and see the fresh marshes stretching out in endless level perspec- tive (as if Paul Potter had painted them), with the cattle, the windmills, and the red-tiled cottages, gleam- ing in the sun to the very verge of the horizon, and watch the fieldfares in innumerable flocks, gambolling in the air, and sporting in the sun, and racing before the clouds, making summersaults, and dazzling the eye by throwing themselves into a thousand figures and movements ; that i might go, as then, a pilgrimage TO THE TOWN WHERE MY MOTHER WAS BORN, AND VISIT THE POOR FARM-HOUSE WHERE SHE WAS BROUGHT UP, AND LEAN UPON THE GATE, WHERE SHE TOLD ME SHE USED TO STAND, WHEN A CHILD OF TEN TEARS OLD, AND LOOK AT the setting sun ! I could do all this still, but with different feelings. " I had at this time, simple as I seemed, many re- sources. I could in some sort 'play at bowls with the sun and moon,' or, at any rate, there was no question in metaphysics that I could not bandy to and fro, as one might play at cup and ball, for twenty, thirty, forty miles of the great- North Eoad, and at it again, the next day, as fresh as ever. I soon get tired of this now, and wonder how I managed formerly." 4 Mr. Patmore, in his Eecollections of this trip, says : — " In going through the various apartments at Sir Richard [04 IIIS WALKING EXTLOITS. Colt .1 1 ( ciro's, I shall never forget the almost childish delight which Ilazlitt exhibited at the sight of two or three of the chief favourites of his early days. " On another day, while at Fonthill, we walked over to Salisbury (a distance of twelve miles) in a broiling sunshine ; and I remember, on this occasion in particu- lar, remarking the extraordinary physical as well as moral effect produced on Haziitt by the sight and feel of the ' country !' p >> 105 CHAPTER X. 1824. Second Marriage — Tour in France and Italy — Autobiography. Mr. Patmoke opens a notice of Charles Lamb with these words : — " My first introduction to Charles Lamb took place accidentally at the lodgings of William Hazlitt, in Down Street, Piccadilly, in 1824." Mr. Hazlitt's first London abode was, as we know, 19, York Street, Westminster. He remained there from 1812 to about 1819. In the autumn of 1820 he removed to 9, Southampton Buildings ; and now, in 1824, we find him migrated to the more fashionable locality of Piccadilly. His changes of residence after the abandonment of York Street were tolerably fre- quent, though not more so than Lamb's. Wherever he was, there was sure to be no cessation of work. He was a most unpretermitting and indefati- gable toiler. Mr. Patmore seems to have imagined that a couple of hours a day during a couple of days in each week was the extent of his subservience to pen- and-ink drudgery ; but this writer is too fond of gene- ralizing from particulars, and has in consequence over- 106 wmkk fob L824. drawn and overcoloured what might have been a very life-like picture. There was a second edition of 'Table Talk' in 1824 ; and Taylor and Bessey made terms with him for his 'Sketches of the Picture Galleries,' which formed a small volume of themselves, with the addition of a criti- cism on Hogarth's 'Marriage-a-la-Mode.' He gave an ' Essay on the Fine Arts ' to the ' Encyclopaedia Bri- tannica ' this year; and in the July number of the 'Edinburgh Review' he had a paper on Shelley's 'Posthumous Poems,' which served to rekindle the indignation of Mr. Leigh Hunt. I have dwelt upon this subject in what appeared on the whole a more con- venient place. My grandfather had met accidentally in a stage- coach, in the course of his numerous excursions, a widow lady of the name of Bridgewater. She had gone out, as a girl, to a relation in Grenada, and was not many weeks in that place before she attracted the notice of Lieutenant-Colonel Bridgewater. They were married ; but very shortly afterwards the colonel died, and his widow returned to Scotland, her native country. " One of my earliest recollections," a gentleman writes to me, " when I was just at the age when one feels the full force of female loveliness, was a day passed in Miss Isabella 's charming presence, at my uncle's in Scotland, when she was about nineteen, and on her way to seme relation in the island of Grenada. I believe she was of a very good family It is so long ago that I do not remember her maiden name ; THE SECOND MES. HAZLITT. 107 but she was connected somehow with an aunt of mine " This is the most obscure period in my grandfather's whole history. All I know is that Mrs. Bridgewater became Mrs. Hazlitt ; that they were married in the first half of 182-A ; and that, his new wife being a person of some property,* Mr. Hazlitt proposed to go with her on a tour through France and Italy, thus accomplish- ing what he had projected so far back as 1822, or even perhaps before Mr. Perry'sf death in the previous year. At the end of August, 1824, Mr. Hazlitt and his wifej * Mr. H. told Mr. Collier that slie was worth £300 a year. f Proprietor of the Morning Chronicle. Mr. H., as appears by my grandmother's diary, told her in 1822 that the journey had been planned, and he was afraid that he shoidd lose the "job to Italy " through the delay in the proceedings at Edinburgh. J My father joined them afterwards ; he was at this time at school at the Rev. William Evans's, Park Wood, Tavistock. I have before me a letter from his mother to him, dated the 25th Sept., 1824. He was intrusted to the charge of Mr. John Hunt, with whom he went over to the Continent, but at what precise time he became one of the party, or where, I have no information. He was with them at Venice, however, and has not yet forgotten the silk curtains which hung in the rooms at Daniell's Hotel. I have also a letter before me, which his grandmother ad- dressed to him in July, while at Park Wood ; it is the only spe- cimen of her hand and composition I know ; and I shall, for one or two reasons, subjoin it entire : — " Alphington, July 21, 1824. " My birthday, aged 78. " My Dear William,* " We were all very glad to hear from you that you were well and happy ; and also that your Father and Mrs. Hazlittf My father. f My grandfather and his second wife. 108 STABTING FOB THE CONTINENT. left London by the coach, and proceeded to Brighton, and from Brighton they took the boal to Dieppe. lie were comfortable together. I wish your cousin "Will * had a Father and Mother to take care of him, forsta has left him at lodgings to take care of himself , and what they are about 1 cannol guess, for they have uoi written a line for some time to him or me, nor has Maryf written to EarrietJ or Will, from Plymouth, where her visit must be nearly ended. Your Aunt met Mrs. Upham in Exeter, and she took her arm and inquired how 1 was. He made a bow. but spoke not, He remains very fond of the Child, § which is very fortunate, and indeed every one must who has a feeling heart, for he is a most beautiful! and engaging < Ihild. "Weareall expecting yon in a fortnight, and think it better to keep at one good school than changing. You will hear from your mama before you return, I suppose; I don't tbink she will write to OS from where she is. We expect to be travelling to Orediton this day seven weeks, where we shall 1"' glad to see you at C.mass. You see I cannot write straight, and I am tired, so you will excuse my writing more. Your Aunt and Miss E.|| join me in kind love to you, your Father, and Mrs. Ha/litt. " TeD Father to write to me by you, and now and then be- sides, and before he goes abroad; I don't like his going; so many die there ; such stagnant waters surrounding the towns, and all over the country. We are reading Mrs. Piozzi's travels in Italy. " I remain, "My dear Child, " Your affecttionate Grandmother, " Grace Hazlitt." * The only son of John Hazlitt. t Maiy, second daughter of the same. X Harriet Hazlitt, eldest daughter of John Hazlitt. § Mrs. [|.hmi'.s Harriett Hazlitt's) son James, by her first husband, Captain Stewart. y Miss Emmett, sister of Robert Emmett. DIEPPE— ROUEN. 109 bad a good passage in the steam-packet : it was on the 1st of September that he crossed. He shall speak for himself : — " We had a fine passage in the steamboat (Sept. 1, 1824). Not a cloud — scarce a breath of air ; a moon, and then starlight till the dawn, with rosy fingers, ushered us into Dieppe. Our fellow-passengers were pleasant and unobtrusive, an English party of the better sort We had some difficulty in getting into the harbour, and had to wait till morning for the tide. I grew very tired, and threw the blame on the time lost in getting some restive horses on board ; but found that if we had set out two hours sooner, we should only have had to wait two hours longer In advancing up the steps to give the officers our passport, I was pre- vented by a young man and woman, who said they were before me ; and on making a second attempt, an elderly gentleman and lady set up the same claim because they stood behind me. It seemed that a servant was waiting with passports for four After a formal custom- house search, we procured admittance at Pratt's Hotel where they said they had reserved a bed for a lady. . . . The window looked out on the bridge and on the river, which reflected the shipping and the houses, and we should have thought ourselves lucidly off, but that the bed, which occupied a niche in the sitting-room, had that kind of odour which could not be mistaken for otto of roses." , From Dieppe they proceeded to Eouen. " The distance from Dieppe to Rouen is thirty-six 110 ROT." UN NoTl miles, and we only paid eight francs, thai is, six shillings and eightpence a-piece, with two franca more to tho guide and postilion, which is do1 fourpence a mile, in- cluding all expenses We arrived [at Ifoucn*] rather Late,bu1 were well received and accommodated at the Eotel VateL My bad French by no means, however, conciliates the regard or increases the civility of the people n>. &c. — Autobiography continued. " We left Paris in tin- Diligence, and arrived at Fontain- bleau the first nierht. The accommodations at the inn were indifferent, and not cheap We walked forward a mile or two before the coach on the road to Montargis. It presents a long, broad, and stately avenue, without a turning as far as the eye can reach, and is skirted on each side by a wild, woody, rocky scenery The day was dull, but quite mild, though in the middle of January "When the Diligence came up, and we took our seats in the coupd, . . . .we found a French lady occupying the third place in it, whose delight at our entrance was as greal as if we had joined her on some desert island, and whoso mortification was distressing when she learnt we were not going the whole way with her. She com- plained of the cold of the night air; but this she scorned to dread less than the want of company. She said she had been deceived, for she had been told F0NTA1NEBLEAU — MONT AEGIS. 127 the coach was full, and was in despair that she should not have a soul to speak to all the way to Lyons. We got out, notwithstanding, at the inn at Montargis, where we met with a very tolerable reception, and were waited on at supper by one of those Maritormeses that perfectly astonish an English traveller. Her joy at our arrival was as extreme as if her whole fortune depended on it. She laughed, danced, sang, fairly sprang into the air, bounded into the room, nearly overset the table, hallooed and talked as loud as if she had been alternately ostler and chambermaid The mistress of the inn, however, was a little peaking, pining woman, with her face wrapped up in flannel, and not quite so inaccessible to nervous impressions ; and when I asked the girl, ' "What made her speak so loud ?' she answered for her, ' To make people deaf.' .... " We staid here till one o'clock on Sunday (the 16tb) waiting the arrival of the Lyonnais, in which we had taken our places forward, and which I thought would never arrive These gentlemen [the proprietors of the coach Lyonnais at Fontainebleau] came to me after I had paid for two places as far as Nevers, to ask me to resign them in favour of two Englishmen, who wished to go the whole way, and to re-engage them for the following evening. I said I could not do that ; but as I had a dislike to travelling,at night, I would go on to Montargis by some other conveyance, and proceed by the Lyonnais, which would arrive there at eight or nine on Sunday morning, as far as I could that night. I set out on the faith of this understanding. 128 * ON THE ROAD TO LYONS. "I had some difficulty in finding the office sur la place, to which I bad been directed, and which was something between a stable, a kitchen, and a cookshop. I was led i" it by a shabby double or counterpart of the Lyon- oais, which stood before the door, empty, dirty, bare of luggage, waiting the Paris one, which had not yet arrived. It drove into town four hours afterwards, with three foundered hacks, with the conducteur and postillion tor its complement of passengers, the last occupying the left-hand corner of the coupe in solitary state "He seized upon me and my trunks as lawful prize: he afterwards insisted on my going forward in the middle of the night to Lyons (contrary to my agreement), and I was obliged to comply, or to sleep upon trusses of straw m a kind of outhouse. We quarrelled incessantly, but I could not help laughing, for he sometimes looked like my old acquaintance Dr. Stoddart, and sometimes like my friend A H , of Edinburgh " He said we should reach Lyons the next evening, and we got there twenty-four hours after the time. He told me, for my comfort, the reason of his being so late was that two of his horses had fallen down dead on the road. He had to raise relays of horses all the way, as if we were travelling through a hostile country ; quar- relled with all his postilions about an abatement of a few sous; and once our horses were arrested in the middle of the night by a farmer who refused to trust him ; and he had to go before the Mayor as soon as dav broke. We were quizzed by the post-boys, the inn- keepers, the peasants all along the road, as a shabby MOULINS — PALISSEAU — ROUANE. 129 concern, and our conducteur bore it all, like another Candide. " We stopped at all the worst inns in the outskirts of the towns, where nothing was ready ; or when it was, was not eatable. The second morning we were to break- fast at Moulins. When we alighted, our guide told us it was eleven : the clock in the kitchen pointed to three. As he laughed in my face, when I complained of his misleading me, I told him that he was ' un impudent,' and this epithet sobered him the rest of the way. " As we left Moulins, the crimson clouds of evening streaked the west, and I had time to think of Sterne's ' Maria.' The people at the inn, I suspect, had never heard of her. There was no trace of romance about the house. Certainly, mine was not a Sentimental Journey. Is the story of Maria the worse because I am travelling a dirty road in a rascally Diligence ? ' " At Palisseau (the road is rich in melodramatic re- collections) it became pitch-dark ; you could not see your hand ; I entreated to have the lamp lighted ; our conducteur said it was broken (casse). With much per- suasion, and the ordering a bottle of their best wine, which went round among the people at the inn, we got a lantern with a rushlight in it ; but the wind soon blew it out, and we went on our way darkly ; the road lay over a high hill, with the loose muddy bottom between two hedges, and as we did not attempt to trot or gallop, we came safe to the level ground on the other side. "We breakfasted at Eouane, where we were first shown into the kitchen, while they were heating a suftb- VOL. II. k 130 TABABE— VISIT PROM an ENGLISHMAN. eating stove in a Bqualid wXle-h-momger. There, while I was sitting half dead with cold and fatigue, a boy came and Bcraped a wooden dresser close al my ear, with a noise to split one's brain, and with true French non- chcUana ; and a portly landlady, who had risen ju-t as we had done breakfasting, ushered us to our carriage with the airs and graces of a Madame Maintenou "In crossing the bridge at Etonane the sun shone brightly on the river and shipping, which had a busy, cheerful aspect; and we began to ascend the Umrbon- aois under more flattering auspices. We got out and walked slowly np the winding read. I found that the morning air refreshed and braced my spirits ; and that even the continued fatigue of the journey, which I had dreaded as a hazardous experiment, was a kind of seasoning to me. I was less exhausted than the first day "As we loitered up the long winding ascent of the road from Kouane, we occasionally approached the brink of some Alpine declivity, tutted with pine-trees, and noticed the white villas, clustering and scattered " Tarare is a neat little town, famous for the manu- facture of serges and calicoes. We had to stop here for three-quarters of an hour, waiting for fresh horses, and as we sat in the eoupS in this helpless state, the horses taken out, the sun shining in, and the wind piercing through every cranny of the broken panes and rattling sash-windows, the postilion came up and demanded to know it we w< re English, as there were two English gentlemen who would be glad to see us. 1 excused my- STILL TWENTY MILES TO L\ONS. 131 self from getting out, but said I should be happy to speak to them. Accordingly, my informant beckoned to a young man in black, who was standing at a little distance in a state of anxious expectation, and coming to the coach-door said he presumed we were from London, and that he had taken the liberty to pay his respects to us. His friend, he said, who was staying with him, was ill in bed, or he would have done himself the same pleasure. He had on a pair of wooden clogs, turned up and pointed at the toes in the manner of the country (which he recommended to me as useful for climbing the hills if ever I should come into those parts), warm worsted mittens, and had a thin, genteel shivering aspect. I expected every moment he would tell me his name or business ; but all I learnt was that he and his friend had been here some time, and that they could not get away till spring " Our delay at Tarare had deprived us of nearly an hour of daylight ; and, besides, the miserable foimdered jades of horses, that we had to get on in this paragon of diligences, were quite unequal to the task of dragging it up and down the hills on the road to Lyons, which was still twenty miles distant. The night was dark, and we had no light^ I found it was quite hopeless when we should reach our journey's end (if we did not break our necks by the way), and'that both were matters of very great indifference to Mons. le Condueteur, who was only bent on saving the pockets of Messieurs his employers, and who had no wish, like me, to see the Vatican ! . . . . L32 AllKIVU. AT LYONS. "We arrived in safety at Lyons at eleven o'clock at eight, ami were conducted to the Hotel dea Couriers, where we, with some difliculty, procured a lodging and a supper, and were attended by a brown, greasy, dark- haired, good-humoured, awkward gipsy of a wench from the smith of Prance, who seemed just caught; stared and laughed, and fcgot every thing she went for; could not help exclaiming every moment — ' Que madame a le peau UancV from the contrast to her ( nvn dingy complexion and dirty skin ; took a large brass pan of scalding milk, came and sat down by me on a bundle of wood, and drank it; said she had no supper, for her head ached ; and declared the English were braves gens, and that the Bourbons were bons enfant*; started up to look through the key-hole, and whispered through her broad stray-set teeth, that a fine madam was descending the staircase, who had been to dine with a great gentleman ; offered to take away the supper things, left them, and called us the next morning with her head and senses in a state of even greater con- fusion than they were over-night " Here is the ' Hotel de Notre-Dame de Pie'te,' which is shewn to you as the inn where Rousseau stopped on his way to Paris, when he went to overturn the French monarchy by the force of style. I thought of him as we came down the mountain of Tarare, in his gold- laced hat, and with his jet-cVeau playing At Lyons 1 saw this inscription over a door : Ici on trouve le seul et unique depot de Venere sans pareil et incor- ruptible — which appeared to me to contain the whole TAKE PLACES FOR TURIN. 133 secret of French poetry. I went into a shop to buy M. Martine's ' Death of Socrates,' which I saw in the window, but they would neither let me have that copy, nor get me another While I was waiting for an answer, a French servant in livery brought in four volumes of the ' History of a Foundling,' an improved translation, in which it was said the morceaux written by M. de la Place were restored. I was pleased to see my old acquaintance Tom Jones, with his French coat on. Leigh Hunt tells me that M. Casimir de la Vigne is a great Bonapartist, and talks of the ' tombs of the brave.' He said I might form some idea of M. Martine's attempts to be great and unfrenchijiecl by the frontispiece to one of his poems, in which a young gentleman in an heroic attitude is pointing to the sea in a storm, with his other hand round a pretty girl's waist. I told Hunt this poet had lately married a lady of fortune. He said, ' That's the girl.' He also said very well, I thought, that 'the French seemed born to puzzle the Germans.' .... " There was a Diligence next day for Turin, over Mont Cenis, which went only twice a week (stopping at night), and I was glad to secure (as I thought) two places in the interior, at seventy francs a seat, for 240 miles. The fare from Paris to Lyons, a distance of 360 miles, was only fifty francs each, which is four times as cheap ; but the difference was accounted for to me from there being no other conveyance, which was an arbitrary reason, and from the number and expense of horses necessary to drag a heavy double coach over 134 THE ROYAL DILIGENCE OF ITALY. mountainous roads. Besides, it was a royal messa- gerie, and I was given to understand that Messrs. Bonnafoux paid the King of Sardinia a thousand crowns a year for permission to run a Diligence through his territories. " The knave of a waiter (I found) had cheated me ; and that from Chambery there was only one place in the interior, and one in the coupe I had no other resource, however, having paid my four pounds in advance, at the overpressing instances of the garcon, but to call him a coquin (which, being a Milanese, was not quite safe), to throw out broad hints (a V Anglais) of a collusion between him and the office, and to arrange as well as I could with the con- dueteur, that I and my fellow-traveller should not be separated. " I would advise all English people travelling abroad to take their own places at coach-offices, and not to trust to waiters, who will make a point of tricking them, both as a principle and pastime ; and further to procure letters of recommendation (in case of disagree- able accidents on the road), for it was a knowledge of this kind, namely, that I had a letter of introduction to one of the professors of the College at Lyons, that procured me even the trifling concession above men- tioned " Annoyed at the unfair way in which we had been treated, and at the idea of being left to the mercy of the condudeur, we took our seats numerically in the royal Diligence of Italy, at seven in the evening ON THE SARDINIAN FRONTIER. 135 (January 20 [1825]), and for some time suffered the extreme penalties of a French stage-coach " Not only were the six places in the interior all taken, and all full, but they had suspended a wicker- basket (like a hencoop) from the top of the coach, stuffed with fur-caps, hats, overalls, and different par- cels, so as to make it impossible to move one way or other, and to stop every remaining breath of air " At midnight we found we had gone only nine miles in five hours, as we had been climbing a gradual ascent from the time we had set out, which was our first essay in mountain scenery The heat became less insupportable as the noise and darkness subsided " At daybreak, the pleasant farms, the thatched cot- tages, and sloping valleys of Savoy attracted our notice, and I was struck with the resemblance to England (to some parts of Devonshire and Somersetshire in par- ticular), a discovery which I imparted to my fellow- travellers with a more lively enthusiasm than it was received "At Pont Beau-Voisin, the frontier town of the King of Sardinia's dominions, we stopped to breakfast, and to have our passports and luggage examined at the Barrier and Custom House. I breakfasted with the Spaniard, who invited himself to our tea-party, and complimented madame (in broken English) on the excellence of her performance. We agreed between ourselves that the Spaniards and English were very much superior to the French. I found he had a taste for the fine arts, and I spoke of Murillo and Velasquez 136 MR. hazlitt's books examined, as two excellent Spanish painters. 'Here was sym- pathy.' I also spoke of Don Quixote. ' Here was more sympathy.' What a thing it is to have produced a work that makes friends of all the world that have read it, and that all the world have read ! . . . . "We were summoned from our tea .and patriotic effusions to attend the Douane. It was striking to have to pass and repass the piquets of soldiers stationed as a guard on bridges across narrow mountain-streams that a child might leap over. After some slight dalliance with our greatcoat pockets, and significant gestures that we might have things of value about us that we should not, we proceeded to the Custom House. I had two trunks. One contained books. When it was un- locked, it was as if the lid of Pandora's box flew open. There could not have been a more sudden start or expression of surprise had it been filled with cartridge- paper or gunpowder. " Books were the corrosive sublimate that eat out despotism and priestcraft A box full of them was a contempt of the constituted authorities ; and the names of mine were taken down with great care and secrecy. Lord Bacon's ' Advancement of Learning ' Milton's ' Paradise Lost,' De Stutt-Tracey's ' Ideologie ' (which Bonaparte said ruined his Russian expedition), Mignet's ' French Revolution ' (which wants a chapter on the English government), ' Sayings and Doings,' with pencil notes in the margin, ' Irving's Orations,' the same, an ' Edinburgh Review,' some Morning Chronicles, the ' Literary Examiner,' a collection of AND TAKEN FROM HIM. 137 poetry, a volume bound in crimson velvet [the Liber Amoris], and the Paris edition of ' Table-talk ' [Paris, Galignani, 1825, 8vo., a copy bound in vellum]. " Here was some questionable matter enough — but no notice was taken. My box was afterwards corded and leaded with equal gravity and politeness, and it was not till I arrived at Turin that I found it was a prisoner of state, and would be forwarded to me anvwhere I chose to mention out of his Sardinian Majesty's do- minions " It was noon as we returned to the inn, and we first caught a full view of the Alps over a plashy meadow, some feathery trees, and the tops of the houses of the village in which we were. It was a magnificent sight, and in truth a new sensation. Their summits were bright with snow and with the mid-day sun ; they did not seem to stand upon the earth, but to prop the sky ; they were at a considerable distance from us, and yet appeared just over our heads. The surprise seemed to take away our breath, and to lift us from our feet. It was drinking the empyrean. " As we could not long retain possession of our two places in the interior, I proposed to our guide to ex- change them for the cabriolet ; and, after some little chaffering and candid representations of the outside pas- sengers of the cold we should have to encounter, we were installed there to our great satisfaction, and the no less contentment of those whom we succeeded. " Indeed I had no idea that we should be steeped in these icy valleys at three o'clock in the morning, or I 138 ECHELLES — LA GROTTE TUNNEL. might have hesitated. The view was cheering, the air refreshing, and I thought we should set off each morn- ing about seven or eight. But it is part of the scavoir vivre in France, and one of the methods of adding to the agremens of travelling, to set out three hours before daybreak in the depth of winter, and stop two hours about noon, in order to arrive early in the evening. "With all the disadvantages of preposterous hours, and of intense cold, pouring into the cabriolet like water the two first mornings, I cannot say I repented of my bargain. We had come a thousand miles to see the Alps for one thing, and we did see them in perfection, whieli we could not have done inside " We came to Echelles, where we changed horses with great formality and preparation, as if setting out on some formidable expedition. Six large, strong-boned horses with high haunches (used to ascend and descend mountains) were put to, the rope-tackle was examined and repaired, and our two postilions mounted and re- mounted more than once before they seemed willing to set off, which they did at last at a hand-gallop, that was continued for some miles " Night was falling as we entered the superb tunnel cut through the mountain at La Grotte (a work attri- buted to Victor Emanuel, with the same truth that Fal staff took to himself the merit of the death of Hot- spur), and its iron floor rang, the whips cracked, and the roof echoed' to the clear voice of our intrepid posti- lion as we dashed through it We had nearly reached the end of our day's journey when we dismissed CHAMBERY — ST. MICHELLE — LANS-LE-BOURG. 139 our two fore-liorses and their rider, to whom I presented a trifling douceur ' for the sake of his good voice and cheerful countenance.' .... " We arrived at Charnbery in the dusk of the even- ing ; and there is surely a charm in the name, and in that of the Charmettes near it We alighted at the inn fatigued enough, and were delighted on being shown to a room to find the floor of wood, and English teacups and saucers. We were in Savoy. "We set out early next morning, and it was the most trying part of our whole journey. The wind cut like a scythe through the valleys, and a cold, icy feel- ing struck from the sides of the snowy precipices that surrounded us ; so that we seemed enclosed in a huge well of mountains. We got to St. Jean de Maurienne to breakfast about noon, where the only point agreed upon appeared to be to have nothing ready to receive us " We arrived at St. Michelle at nightfall (after pass- ing through beds of ice and the infernal regions of cold), where we met with a truly hospitable reception, with wood floors in the English fashion, and where they told us the King of England had stopped. This made no sort of difference to_me. "We breakfasted the next day (being Sunday) at Lans-le-Bourg We were now at the foot of Mont Cenis, and after breakfast we s*et off on foot before the Diligence, which was to follow us in half-an-hour. We passed a melancholy-looking inn at the end of the town, professing to be kept by an Englishman, but there ap- 140 ON THE TOP OF MONT CENIS. 1 1« -an '(1 to be nobody about the place We found two of our fellow-travellers following our example, and they soon after overtook us. They were both French. "We noticed some of the features of the scenery, and a lofty hill opposite to us being scooped out into a bed of snow, with two ridges or promontories (something like an arm-chair) on each side, ' Voild !' said the younger and more volatile of our companions, ' cest un trone, et la nuage est la glolre V — a white cloud indeed encircled its misty top. I complimented him on the happiness of his allusion, and said that Madame was pleased with the exactness of the resemblance " All the way as we ascended there were red posts placed at the edge of the road, ten or twelve feet in height, to point out the direction of the road in case of a heavy fall of snow, and with notches cut to show the depth of the drifts. There were also scattered stone hovels, erected as stations for the gens-d'armes, who were sometimes left here for several days together after a severe snow-storm, without being approached by a single human being. "One of these stood near the top of the mountain, and as we were tired of the walk (which had occupied two hours) and of the uniformity of the view, we agreed to wait here for the Diligence to overtake us. " We were cordially welcomed in by a young peasant (a soldier's wife), with a complexion as fresh as the winds, and an expression as pure as the mountain snows. The floor of this rude tenement consisted of the solid rock ; and a three-legged table stood on it, on which SUSA — TURIN. 141 were placed three earthen bowls filled with sparkling wine, heated on a stove, with sugar I shall not soon forget the rich ruby colour of the wine, as the sun shone upon it through a low glazed window that looked out on the boundless wastes around, nor its grateful spicy smell, as we sat round it " The coach shortly after overtook us. We descended a long and steep declivity with the highest point of Mont Cenis on our left, and a lake to the right, like a landing-place for geese The snow on this side of the mountain was nearly gone. I supposed myself for some time nearly on level ground till we came in view of several black chasms or steep ravines in the side of the mountain facing us Long after we continued to descend, and came at length to a small village at the bottom of a sweeping line of road, where the houses seemed like dove-cotes with the mountains' back reared like a wall behind them, and which I thought the termi- nation of our journey. But here the wonder and the greatness began It was not till we entered Susa, with its fine old drawbridge and castellated walls, that we found ourselves on terra firma, or breathed common air again. At the inn at Susa we first perceived the difference of Italian manners ; and the next day [we] arrived at Turin, after passing over thirty miles of the straightest, flattest, and dullest road in the world. " Here we stopped two days to recruit our strength and look about us." 142 CHAPTER XII. 1825. Turin and Florence — Autobiography continued (January, February). " M y arrival at Turin was the first and only moment of intoxication I have found in Italy. It is a city of palaces. After a change of dress I walked out, and traversing several clean, spacious streets, came to a promenade outside the town, from which I saw the chain of Alps we had left behind us, rising like a range of marble pillars in the evening sky I could distinguish the broad and rapid Po winding along at the other extremity of the walk, through vineyards and meadow grounds. The trees had on that deep sad foliage which takes a mellower tinge from being pro- longed into the midst of winter, and which I had only seen in pictures. A monk was walking in a solitary grove at a little distance from the common path. The air was soft and balmy, and I felt transported to another climate — another earth — another sky. The winter was suddenly changed to spring. It was as if I had to begin my life anew " I returned to the inn (the Pension Suisse) in high THE OPERA AT TURIN. 143 spirits, and made a most luxuriant dinner. We had a wild duck equal to what we had in Paris, and the grapes were the finest I ever tasted. Afterwards we went to the opera, and saw a ballet of action (out-Heroding Herod), with all the extravagance of incessant dumb- show and noise, the glittering of armour, the burning of castles, the clattering of horses on and off the stage, and heroines like furies in hysterics. Nothing at Bartholomew Fair was ever in worse taste, noisier or finer " We were at the back of the pit, in which there was only standing room, and leaned against the first row of boxes, full of the Piedmontese nobility, who talked fast and loud in their harsh guttural dialect in spite of the repeated admonitions of ' a gentle usher, Authority by name,' wdio every five seconds hissed some lady of quality and high breeding whose voice was heard with an eclat above all the rest "The only annoyance I found at Turin was the number of beggars, who are stuck against the walls like fixtures " We were fortunate enough to find a voiture going from Geneva to Florence with an English lady and her niece. I bargained for the two remaining places for ten guineas, and the journey turned out pleasantly, I believe, to all parties ; I am sure it did so to us. We were to be eight days on the road, and to stop two days to rest, once at Parma and once at Bologna, to see the pictures. " Having made this arrangement, I was proceeding 144 DEPARTURE FROM TURIN. over the bridge towards the Observatory that commands a view of the town and the whole surrounding country, and had 1 INTRODUCTION TO MR. L.VNDOR. and glossiness of an enamel picture. I remember the first time I ever saw it, it stood on an easel which I had to pass, with the hack to me; and as I turned and saw it with the boar-spear in its band, and its keen glance benl upon me, it seemed ' a thing of life,' with super- nal nral force and grandeur." [At Florence he was introduced to Mr. Walter Savage Landor ; and Mr. Patmore seems to have thought that the interview was productive of benefit, in leaving behind in Mr. Hazlitt's mind a higher opinion of .Mr. Landor's personal and literary qualities. The fact is, that my grandfather had always held the 'Imaginary Conversations' in considerable esteem — it was rather a favourite volume with him; and I suppose that the opportunity he now enjoyed of coming into immediate contact with the writer dislodged, at all events tem- porarily, the prejudices he had formed against him on account of his political tenets. But he could never have entertained the same degree of auimosity on politieal grounds against Landor as he did against Scott, whom he refused to know when Jeffrey offered, in 1822, to bring them together. It was during his stay hero (in May, 1825) that he wrote the Paper ' On Heading New Books,' which is printed in ' Essays and Sketches,' 1839.] loo CHAPTER XIII. 1825. From Florence to Rome — Autobiography continued (February, March). " The road between Florence and Rome by Sienna is not very interesting Shortly after you leave Florence the way becomes dreary or barren and un- healthy. Towards the close of the first day's journey, however, we had a splendid view of the country we were to travel, which lay stretched out beneath our feet to an immense distance, as we descended into the little town of Pozzo Borgo We did not find the ac- commodation on the road quite so bad as we had ex- pected. The chief want is of milk, which is to be had only in the morning ; but we remedied this defect by taking a bottle of it with us. The weather was cold enough (in the middle of March) to freeze it "We did not meet ten carriages on our journey, a distance of a hundred and ninety-three miles, and which it took us six days to accomplish. I may add that we paid only seven louis for our two places in the voiture (which, besides, we had entirely to ourselves), L56 FROM FLORENCE TO ROME. our expenses on the road included We stopped the third morning ;it the wretched iuu of La Scala. . . . . Over a tremendous valley to the left we saw tin' distant hills of Perugia, covered with snow and blackened with clouds, and a heavy sleet was falling around us. We started on being told that the post- house stood on the other side of the fort (at a height of 2400 feet above the level of the sea), and that we were to pass the night there. It was like being lodged in a cloud ; it seemed the rocking-cradle of storms and tempests It reminded me, by its preternatural strength and sullen aspect, of the castle of Giant I >cspair in the ' Pilgrim's Progress.' .... Never did I see anything so rugged and so stately, apparently so formidable in a former period, so forlorn in this " We drove into the inn-yard, which resembled a barrack (as do most of the inns on the road), with its bedrooms like hospital-wards, and its large apartments for assemblages of armed men now empty, gloomy, and unfurnished; but we found a hospitable welcome, and, by the aid of a double fee to the waiters, everything very comfortable. The first object was to procure milk for our tea (of which last article we had brought Some vs. The mixture of wildness and luxuriance AQUAPENDENTE — SAN LORENZO, ETC. 157 answered to my idea of Italian scenery, but I had seen little of it hitherto. The town is old, dirty, and dis- agreeable ; and we were driven to an inn in one of the bye-streets, where there was but one sitting-room, which was occupied by an English family, who were going to leave it immediately, but who, I suppose, on learning that some one else was waiting for it, claimed the right of keeping it as long as they pleased " After waiting some time we at last breakfasted in a sort of kitchen or out-house upstairs, where we had very excellent but homely fare — a dove-house, a kid, half- skinned, hanging on the walls, a loose heap of maca- roni and vegetables in one corner, plenty of smoke, a Madonna carved and painted, and a map of Constanti- nople. The pigeons on the floor were busy with their murmuring plaints, and often fluttered their wings as if to fly. So, thought I, the nations of the earth clap their wings, and strive in vain to be free ! . . . . "The road from Aquapendente is of a deep heavy soil, over which the horses with difficulty dragged the carriage We passed, I think, but one habitation between Aquapendente and San Lorenzo, and met but one human being, who was a gendarme ! I asked our vetturino if tlris dreary aspect of the country was the effect of nature or of art.^ He pulled a handful of earth from the hedge-side, and showed a rich black loam, capable of every improvement. 1 asked in whose dominions we were, and received for answer, 'In the Pope's.' .... "The road between Bolsena and 3Ionte-Fiascone, L58 DISAPPOINTED WITH SOME. which you Bee on an eminence before you, lies through a range of gloomy defiles The bouse of Salvator Rosa ;ii Viterbo] isal present let out in lodgings. I have HOW lived twice in bouses occupied by celebrated men; once in a house thai had belonged to Milton, and now in this, and find to my mortification that imagina- tion is entirely a thing imaginary -'As London is to the meanest country town, so is E&onie to every other city in the world.' "So said an old friend of mine; and I believed him till I saw it. This is not the Home I expected to see. No one, from being in it, would know he was in the place that bad been twice mistress of the world. I do not understand bow Nicholas Poussin could tell, taking up a handful of earth, that it was 'a part of the Etebnal ClTY No! this is not the wall that Remus leaped over: this is not the Capitol where Julius Caesar fell : instead of standing on seven hills, it situated in a low valley : the golden Tiber is a muddy -uvam: St. Peter's is not equal to St. Paul's: the Vatican falls short of the Louvre as it was in my time ; but I thought that here were works immovable, im- mortal, inimitable on earth, and lifting the soul half- v to heaven. I find them not, or only what I had 3een before in different ways " From the window 7 of the house where 1 lodge I have a view of the whole city at once; nay, I can see St. Peter's as I lie in bed of a morning The pleasantest walks L know are round the Via ■Sistina and along the Via di Quattro-Fontane. st. peter's illuminated. 159 " I was lucky enough to see the Pope here on Easter Sunday. He seems a harmless, infirm, fretful old man. .... I was also lucky enough to see St. Peter's illumi- nated to the very top (a project of Michael Angelo's) in the evening. It was finest at first, as the kindled lights blended with the fading twilight I can easily con- ceive some of the wild groups that I saw in the streets the following day to have been led by delight and wonder from their mountain-haunts, or even from the bandits' cave, to worship at this new starry glory, rising from the earth. " I did not hear the Miserere which is chanted by the priests and sung by a single voice (I understand like an angel's) in a dim religious light in the Sistine Chapel, nor did I see the exhibition of the relics, at which, I was told, all the beauty of Rome was present. .... I am no admirer of pontificals, but I am a slave to the picturesque. The jn'iests talking together in St. Peter's, or the common people kneeling at the altars, make groups that shame all art " The young women that come here from Gersano and Albano, and that are known by their scarlet bodices and white head-dresses and handsome good- humoured faces, are -the finest specimens I have ever seen of human nature. They are like creatures that have breathed the air of heaven till the sun has ripened them into perfect beauty, health, and goodness. They are universally admired in Rome. The English women that you see, though pretty, are pieces of dough to them. 160 AN OLD FELLOW-STUDENT. "The picture-galleries in Home disappointed me quite, I was told there were a do/en ai h-asl equal t<> the Louvre; there is nol one. I shall not dwell long upon them, for they gave me little pleasure -1 had the good fortune to meet the other day, at Paris, with my old fellow-student Dr. Edwards, after a lapse of thirty years ; he is older than I by a year or two. ami makes it live-and-twenty. He had not been idle since we parted. He sometimes looked in after having [iaid La Place a visit; and I told him it was almosl as if he had called on a star in his way. It is wonderful how friendship that has long lain unused accumulates like money at compound interest. We had to settle an old aecount, and to compare old times and new He was particularly mortified at the degraded state of our public press — at the systematic organization of a corps of government critics, to decry every liberal sentiment, and proscribe every liberal writer as an enemy to the person of the reigning sove- reign, only because he did not avow the principles of the Stuarts. I had some difficulty in making him understand the full lengths of the malice, the lying, the hypocrisy, the sleek adulation, the meanness, equi- vocation, and skulking concealment of a ' Quarterly' Re- viewer, the reckless blackguardism of Mr. Blackwood, and the obtuse drivelling profligacy of the John Bull. •• He -;iid. -It is worse with you than with us : here an author is obliged to sacrifice twenty mornings and twenty pair of black silk stockings in paying his court to the editors of different journals, to insure a hearing ROME. 161 from the public, but with you, it seems, he must give up his understanding and his character, to establish a claim to taste or learning.' .... "I told him that public opinion in England was at present governed by half a dozen miscreants, who un- dertook to bait, hoot, and worry every man out of his country, or into an obscure grave, with lies and nick- names, who was not prepared to take the political sacrament of the dav To be a reformer, the friend of a reformer, or the friend's friend of a re- former, is as much as a man's peace, reputation, or even life is worth. Answer, if it is not so, pale shade of Keats ! . . . . " Dr. Edwards was unwilling to credit this statement, but the proofs were too flagrant. He asked me what became of that band of patriots that swarmed in our younger days, that were so glowing hot, desperate, and noisy in the year 1794. I said I could not tell " At Turin, they told me it was not wise to travel by a vetturino to Florence without arms. At Florence, I was told one could not walk out to look at an old ruin in Rome without expecting to see a Lazzaroni start from behind some part of it with a pistol in his hand. ' There's no such thing.' .... I am at present kept from proceeding forward to Naples by imaginarij bands of brigands that infest the road, the whole way As to courtezans, from which one cannot separate the name of Italy even in idea, I have seen but one person answering to this description since I came, and I do not even know that this was one. VOL. II. M 1G2 l'abicoia. "But I saw a girl in white (an unusual thing) standing at some distance at the corner. of one of the by-streets in lloiiu' ; after looking round her for a moment, she ran hastily up the streel again, as if in fear of being discovered, and a countryman who was passing with a cart at the time, stopped to look and hiss after her. . . . "We had some thoughts of taking a lodging at L'Ariceia. at the Caflfe del Piazza, for a month, but the deep sandy roads, the sentinels posted every half- mile on this, which is the route for Naples (which showed that it was not very safe to leave them), the loose, straggling woods, sloping down to the dreary marshes, and the story of Hippolytus painted on the walls of the inn (who, it seems, was 'native to the manner here,') deterred us. "L'Ariceia, besides being, after Cortona, the oldest place in Italy, is also one step towards Naples, which I had a strong desire to see — its brimming shore, its sky which glows like one entire sun, Vesuvius, the mouth of hell, and Sorrentum, like the Islands of the Blest — yet here again the reports of robbers, exaggerated alike by foreigners and natives, who wish to keep you where you are, the accounts of hogs without hair, and children without clothes to their backs, the vermin (animal as well as human), the gilded ham and legs of mutton that Forsyth speaks of, gave me a distaste to the journey, and 1 turned back to put an end to the question. ■• 1 am fond of the sun, though 1 do not like to see him and the assassin's knife' glaring over my head together. .... For myself, my remittances have not been very ANECDOTE OF LUCIEN BUONAPARTE. 163 regular even in walled towns ; how I should fare in this respect upon the forked mountain I cannot tell, and certainly I have no wish to try. "A friend of mine said that he thought it the only romantic thing going, this of being carried off by the banditti " I remember once meeting Lucien Buonaparte in the streets of Paris [he has since lived in Boine], walking arm in arm with Maria Cosway, with whom I had drunk tea the evening before. He was dressed in a light drab- coloured great-coat, and was then a spirited, dashing- looking young man. I believe I am the only person in England who ever read his ' Charlemagne.' It is as clever a poem as can be written by a man who is not a poet. It came out in two volumes quarto, and several individuals were applied to by the publishers to translate it ; among others, Sir Walter Scott, who gave for answer, ' that as to Mister Buonaparte's poem, he should have nothing to do with it.' " A young Englishman returned the other day to Italy with a horse that he had brought with him for more than two thousand miles on the other side of Grand Cairo, and poor Bowdich gave up the ghost in a second attempt to penetratelo the source of the Nile I am myself somewhat effeminatci, and would rather ' the primrose path of dalliance tread;' or the height of my ambition in this line would be to track the ancient route up the valley of the Simplon, leaving the modern road (much as I admire the work and the workman), and clambering up the ledges of rocks, and over broken 1G4 T1V0LI. bridges, at the risk of a sprained ankle or a broken limb, to return to a late but excellent dinner at the post-house at Brigg ! . . . . "Before leaving Borne, we -went to Tivoli, of which so much has been said. The morning was bright and cloud- less ; but a thick mist rose from the low, rank, marshy grounds of the Campagna, and enveloped a number of curious objects to the right and left, till we approached the sulphurous stream of Solfatara, which we could dis- tinguish at some distance bv its noise and smell "Tivoli is an enchanting, a fairy spot As I have got so far on my way, I may as well jump the intermediate space, and proceed with my statistics here, as there was nothing on the road between this and Rome worth mentioning, except Narni (ten miles from Term), the approach to which overlooks a fine, bold, woody, precipitous valley. We stopped at Terni for the express purpose of visiting the Fall, which is four or five miles from it The prospect of the cold, blue mountain-tops, and other prospects which the sight of this road recalled, chilled me, and I hastened down the side-path to lose, in the roar of the Velino tumbling In >m its rocky height, and the wild freedom of nature, my r< collection of tyranny and tyrants. " On a green bank far below, so as to be just discern- ible, a shepherd boy was sleeping under the shadow of a tree, surrounded by his flock, enjoying peace and freedom, scarce knowing their names. That's some- thin-- " We returned to the inn at Terni too late to proceed SPOLETO — FOLIGNO — PERUGIA. 165 on our journey, and were thrust, as a special favour, into a disagreeable apartment I was foolish enough to travel twice in this manner, and pay three napoleons a day, for which I might have gone post, and fared in the most sumptuous manner. I ought to add in justice that, when I have escaped from the guardianship of Monsieur le Vetturino, and have stopped at inns on my own account, as was the case at Venice, Milan, and at Florence twice, I have no reason to complain either of the treatment or the expense " We proceeded next morning (in no very good hu- mour) on our way to Spoleto. The way was brilliant, and our road lay through steep and narrow defiles for several hours We arrived at Foligno early in the evening, and as a memorable exception to the rest of our route, found there an inn equally clean and hospitable. "From the windows of our room we could see the young people of the town walking out in a fine open country, to breathe the clear fresh air, and the priests sauntering in groups and enjoying the otium cum dignitate " We turned off at Assizi to view the triple Franciscan church and monastery I forgot to mention, in the proper place, that I Avas quite delighted with the external deportment of the ecclesiastics in Rome. It was marked by a perfect propriety, decorum, and 4 humanity, from the highest to the lowest. " At Perugia, when looking at some panels in a church, painted by Pietro Perugino, we met with a young Irish priest, who claimed acquaintance with us L66 I ORTOH \ -AREZZO — [NOIBA. as country-folks, and recommended our staying six days, to see the ceremonies and finery attending the translation of the d< I head of his order from 1 1 1 « - church where he lay to bis final resting-place. We were obliged by this proposal, l>ut declined it. It was curious to hear English spoken by the inmate of a Benedictine monastery "Perugia is situated on a lofty hill, and is in ap- perance the most solid mass of building I ever beheld. .... Travelling this road from Rome to Florence is like an eagle's flight— from hill-top to hill-top, from towered city to city, and your eye devours your way before \"ii over hill or plain. We saw Cortona on our right, looking over its wall of ancienl renown, conscious of its worth, not obtruding itself on superficial notice, and passed through A.rezzo, the reputed birth-place of Petrarch. All the way we were followed (hard upon) by another vetturino, with an English family, and we had a scramble, whenever we stopped, for supper, beds, or milk. At Incisa, the last stage before we arrived at Florence, an intimation was conveyed that we should give up onr apartments in the inn, and sock for lod-iii-s elsewhere Near Perugia, we passed the celebrated Fake of Thrasymene, where Hannibal defeated the Roman consul Elaminius. It struck me asnol unlike Windermere in character and -emery, but I have seen other lakes since, which have driven it out of my head. . . . ." 16- CHAPTER XIV. 1825. From Rome, through Florence, to Venice — Impressions of "Venice— From Venice to Milan — Autobiography continued (April, May). " I have already described the road between Florence and Bologna. I found it much the same on returning. .... We stopped the first night at Traversa, a miser- able inn or almost hovel on the road-side, in the most desolate part of this track; and found, amidst scenes which the imagination and the pen of travellers have peopled with ghastly phantoms and the assassin's mid- night revelry, a kind but simple reception, and the greatest sweetness of manners "The second morning we reached the last of the Apennines that overlook Bologna, and saw stretched out beneath our feet_a different scene, the vast plain of Lombardy, and almost the whole of the North of Italy, like a rich sea of boundless verdure, with towns and villages spotting it like the sails of ships We presently descended into this plain (which formed a perfect contrast to the country we had lately passed), and it answered fully to the promise it had given us. 168 BOLOGNA — FERRARA. We travelled for days — for weeks — through it, and found nothing but ripeness, plenty, and beauty. It may well be called the Garden of Italy, or of the world. The whole way, from Bologna to Venice, from Venice to Milan, it is literally so " We went to our old inn at Bologna, which we liked better the second time than the first We set out early the next morning on our way to Venice, turning off to Ferrara. " It was a fine spring morning. The dew was on the grass, and shone like diamonds in the sun. A refresh- ing breeze fanned the light-green, odorous brauches of the trees, which spread their shady screen on each side the road, which lay before us as straight as an arrow for miles. Venice was at the end of it ; Padua, Ferrara, mid-way. "The prospect (both to the sense and the imagina- tion) was exhilarating ; and we enjoyed it for some hours, till we stopped to breakfast at a smart-looking detached inn at a turning of the road, called, I think, the ATbergo di Venezia. This was one of the pleasantest places we came to during the whole of our route. " We were shown into a long saloon, into which the sun shone at one extremity, and we looked out upon the green fields and trees at the other. There were flowers in the room. An excellent breakfast of coffee, bread, butter, eggs, and slices of Bologna sausages was served up with neatness and attention "At Ferrara we were put on short allowance, and as we found remonstrance vain, we submitted in silence. ROVIGO — PADUA — VENICE. 169 We were the more mortified at this treatment as we had begun to hope for better things ; but Mr. Henry Waister, our commissary on the occasion, was deter- mined to make a good thing of his three napoleons a- day ; he had strained a point in procuring us a tolerable supper and breakfast at the two last stages, which must serve for some time to come ; and as he would not pay for our dinner, the landlord would not let us have one, and there the matter rested. " We walked out in the evening, and found Ferrara enchanting. Of all the places I have seen in Italy, it is the one by far I should most covet to live in "From Ferrara we proceeded through Rovigo to Padua the Learned, where we were more fortunate in our inn Soon after leaving Padua, you begin to cross the canals and rivers which intersect this part of the country bordering upon the sea, and for some miles you follow the course of the Brenta, along a flat, dusty, and unprofitable road. This is a period of considerable and painful suspense, until you arrive at Fusina, where you are put into a boat and rowed down one of the Lagunas, where, over banks of high rank grass and reeds, and between solitary sentry-boxes at different intervals, "you see Venice rising from the sea I do not know whajt Lord Byron and Lady Morgan could mean by quarrelling about the question, who first called Venice ' the Rome of the sea ' — since it is perfectly unique in its kind " I never saw palaces any where but at Venice. Those at Rome are dungeons compared to them The 170 THE GRIMANI PALM i:. richest in interior decoration that I saw was the Grimani palace,* which answered to all the imaginary conditions of this sort of thing. Aladdin might have exchanged his for it. and given his lamp into the bargain. The floors are of marble, the tables of precious stones, the chairs and Curtains of rich silk, the walls covered with looking- glasses, and it contains a cabinet of invaluable antique sculpture, and some of Titian's finest portraits I saw no other mansion equal to this. The Pisani is the next to it for elegance and splendour ; and from its situation on the Grand Canal, it admits a flood of bright day through glittering curtains of pea-green silk, into a noble saloon, enriched with an admirable family-picture by Paul Veronese, with heads equal to Titian in all but the character of thought. t " Titian was ninety-nine when he died, and was at last carried off by the plague. My guide, who was enthusiastic on the subject of Venetian art, would not allow of any falling-off in these latest efforts of his mighty pencil, but represented him as prematurely cut off in the height of his career. He knew, he said, an old man, who died a year ago, at one hundred and twenty. The Venetians may still live to be old, but they do not paint like Titian ! * Tin' Grimani family is, I believe, extinct. The daughter of a Signer Grimani (who was teacher of languages in Eng- land for many years) married Thomas Hornby, Esq., and was the mother of my old acquaintance, Sir Edmund Grimani Hornby. f This is the picture which is now in the National Gallery ; it was I »'iight for England a few years ago at a cost of 14,000/. THE ST. PETER MARTYR. 171 "I teased my valet-de-place (Mr. Andrew Wyche, a Tyrolese, a very pleasant, companionable, and patriotic sort of person) the whole of the first morning at every fresh landing or embarkation by asking, ' But are we going to see the St. Peter Martyr ?' When we reached the church of St. John and St. Paul, the light did not serve, and we got reprimanded by the priest for turning our backs on the Host, in our anxiety to find a proper point of view. We returned to the church about five in the afternoon, when the light fell upon it through a high-arched Gothic window I found everything in its place, and as I expected ; yet I am unwilling to say that I saw it through my former impressions Most probably, as a picture, it is the finest in the world ; or if I cannot say it is the picture which I would the soonest have painted, it is at least the one which I would the soonest have I left this admirable performance with regret ; yet I do not see why ; for I have it present with me, ' in my mind's eye,' and swear, in the wildest scenes of the Alps, that the St. Peter Martyr is finer. That and the man [with the Glove] in the Louvre are my standards of perfection : my taste may be wrong, nay, even ridicu- lous — yet such it isr " Daniell's Hotel, at which we were. . . . commands a superb view of the bay, and the scene (particularly by moonlight) is delicious. I heard no music at Venice, neither voice nor lute ; saw no group of dancers or maskers ; I saw the Eialto, which is no longer an Ex- change b72 THE SUNDIAL. •• lloras non nuiru ro nisi serenas, is the motto of a sun- dial near Venice. There is a softness and a harmony in the w.a-ds and in the thought unparalleled For myself, as I rode through the Brenta, while the sun shone hot upon its sluggish, shiny waves, my sensations were Ear from comfortable; but the reading this inscrip- tion on the side of a glaring wall in an instant restored me to myself; still, whenever I think of or repeat it, it lias the power of wafting me into the region of pure and blissful abstraction It (the dial) stands sub dio, under the marble air, and there is some connection between the image of infinity and eternity. I should also like to have a sunflower growing near it, with bees fluttering round. Is this a verbal fallacy ? or in the close, retired, sheltered soul which I have imagined to myself, is not the sunflower a natural accompaniment of the sundial? "We left Venice with mingled satisfaction and regret. We had to retrace our steps as far as Padua, on our way to 3rilan. For four days' journey, from Padua to Verona, to Brescia, to Treviglio, to Milan, the whole way was cultivated beauty and smiling vegetation The Northern Italians are as fine a race of people as walk the earth ; and all that they want, to be what they once wore, is neither English abuse nor English assistance, but three words spoken to the other powers; 'Let them alone !' " We reached Verona the second day: it is delight- fully situated They here show you the tomb of Juliet The guide also points to the part of the MILAN. 173 wall that Eomeo leaped over, and takes you to the spot in the garden where he fell. This gives an air of trick and fiction to the whole " On returning from this spot, which is rather low and gloomy, we witnessed the most brilliant sight we had seen in Italy ; the sun setting in a flood of gold behind the Alps that overlook the lake of Garda. The Adige foamed at our feet below ; the bank opposite was of pure emerald ; the hills which rose directly behind it in the most fantastic forms were of perfect purple, and the arches of the bridge to the left seemed plunged in ebon darkness by the flames of light that darted round them. " We met with nothing remarkable the rest of the way to Milan, except the same rich, unvaried face of the country I think I never saw so many well- grown, well-made, good-looking women as at Milan. I did not, however, see one face strikingly beautiful, or with a very fine expression We saw the cele- brated theatre of the Gran Scala, which is of an immense size, and of extreme beauty, but it was not full, nor was the performance striking. The manager is the pro- prietor of the Cobourg Theatre (Mr. Glossop), and his wife (formerly our Miss Fearon) the favourite singer of the Milanese circles. " I inquired after the great pantomime actress, Pal- larini, but found she had retired from the stage on a fortune. The name of Yigano was not known to my informant. I did not see the great picture of the Last Supper, by Leonardo, nor the little Luini, two miles out 174 CORNO — BAVENO — DOMO d'OSSOLA. of Milan, which my friend Mr. Beyle charged me par- ticularly tO Sec. "We Left Milan in a calash or small open carriage, to proceed to the Isles Borronees. The first day it rained violently, and the third day the boy drove us wrong, pretending to mistake Laveno for Baveno; so I got rid of him. " We had a delightful morning at Corno, and a fine view of the lake and surrounding hills I had a hankering after Cadenobia; but the Simplon still lay before me. We -were utterly disappointed in the Isles Borronees. Isola Bella, belonging to the Marquis Borromeo, indeed resembles ' a pyramid of sweetmeats ornament id with green festoons and flowers.' I had supposed this to be a heavy German conceit ; but it is a literal description. The pictures in the palace are trash. We were accosted by a beggar in an island which contains only a palace and an inn. " We proceeded to the inn at Baveno, situated on the high road, close to the lake, and enjoyed for some days the enchanting and varied scenery along its banks " We were tempted to stop here for the summer in a suite of apartments (not ill furnished) that command a panoramic view of the lake, hidden by woods and vine- yards from all curious eyes, or in a similar set of rooms at Intra on the other side of the lake, with a garden and the conveniences of a market-town, for six guineas the half-year. The temptation was great We wished, however, tu pass the Simplon first •• We proceeded to Domo d'Ossola for this purpose, THE SIMPLON. 175 and the next clay began the ascent. I have already at- tempted to describe the passage of Mont Cenis ; this is said to be finer, and I believe it ; but it impressed me less, I believe, owing to circumstances. " We passed under one or two sounding arches, and over some lofty bridges. At length we reached the village of the Simplon, and stopped there at a most excellent inn, where we had a supper that might vie, for taste and elegance, with that with which Chiffinch entertained Peveril of the Peak and his companion at the little inn in the wilds of Derbyshire. "The next day we proceeded onwards, and passed the commencement of the tremendous glacier of the Flech Horr This mountain is only a few hundred feet lower than Mont Blanc, yet its name is hardly known. So a difference of a hair's-breadth in talent often makes all the difference between total obscurity and endless renown. " We soon after passed the barrier, and found our- selves involved in fog and driving sleet upon the brink of precipices ; the view was hidden, the road dangerous- On our right were drifts of snow, left there by the avalanches. Soon after the mist dispersed, or we had perhaps passed below it, and a fine sunny morning dis- closed the whole amazing scene above, about, below us We wound round the' valley at the other extremity of it ; the road on the opposite side, which we could plainly distinguish, seemed almost on the level ground, and when we reached it, we found it at a still greater depth below us I think the finest part 176 B1UGG — TORTOMANIA. of tin 1 descent of tin- Simplon is about four or five miles, before you conic to Brigg "We lefl the inn at Brigg, after having stopped there above a week, and proceeded on our way to Vevey, which had always been an interesting point in the hori/on, and a resting-place to the imagination. . . . Vevey is the scene of the ' New Heloise.' In spite of Mr. Burke's philippic against this performance, the con- tempt of the ' Lake School,' and ]\1 r. Moore's ' Rhymes on the Road,' I had still some overmastering recollec- tions on that subject, which I proposed to indulge at my leisure on the spot, which was supposed to give them birth, and which I accordingly did. " I did not, on re-perusal, find my once favourite work quite so rapid, quite so void of eloquence or sentiment as some critics would insinuate. [The writer here quotes a passage, commencing — Mais vois la rapidite de cet astre, &c] What a difference between the sound of this passage and of Mr. Moore's verse or prose ! Nay, there is more imagination in the single epithet astre, applied as it is here to this brilliant and fleeting scene of things, than in all our fashionable poet's writings! At least, I thought so, reading St. Preux's letter in the wood near Clarens, and stealing occasional glances at the lake and rocks of Meil- lerie "As we advanced farther on beyond Tortomania, the whole breadth of the valley was sometimes covered with pine-forests, which gave a relief to the eye, and afforded scope to the imagination In this part of our SION — MARTIGNY. 177 journey, however, besides the natural wildness and grandeur of the scenery, the road was rough and un- even "We reached Sion that evening. It is one of the dirtiest and least comfortable towns on the road It was here that Rousseau, in one of his early peregri- nations, was recommended by his landlord to an iron- foundry in the neighbourhood (the smoke of which, I believe, we saw at a little distance), where he would be likely to procure employment, mistaking the 'pauper lad ' for a journeyman blacksmith Haunted by some indistinct recollection of this adventure, I asked at the inn ' if Jean Jacques Rousseau had ever resided in the town ?' The waiter himself could not tell, but soon after brought back for answer, 'that Monsieur Rousseau had never lived there, but that he had passed through about fourteen years before on his way to Italy, when he had only time to stop to take tea ! Was this a mere stupid blunder, or one of the refrac- tions of fame, founded on his mission as secretary to the Venetian ambassador a hundred years before ? There is a tradition in the neighbourhood of Milton's house in York Street, Westminster, that ' one Mr. Mil- ford, a celebrated poet, formerly lived there !' " We set forward the nest morning on our way to Martigny It was a most unpleasant ride. The wind poured down from these tremendous hills, and blew with unabated fury in our faces the whole way. Nor did the accommodation at the inn (the Swan, 1 think) make us amends. The rooms were cold and VOL. II. N 178 BEX. empty The only picturesque objects between this and Bex are n waterfall about two hundred feet in height and the romantic bridge of St. Maurice " Bex itself is delicious There is an excellent inn, a country church before it, a large ash tree, a circulating library, a rookery, everything useful and comfortable for the life of man Our reception at the inn was every way what we could wish, and we were half disposed to stop here for some months. But something whispered me on to Vevey ; this we reached the next day in a drizzling shower of rain, which pre- vented our seeing much of the country The day after my arrival I found a lodging at a farm-house a mile out of Vevey, so 'lapped in luxury,' so retired, so reasonable, and in every respect convenient, that we remained here for the rest of the summer, and felt no small regret at leaving it." 179 CHAPTER XV. 1825. Yevey — Stay there from June to September — Pass through part of Holland (Sept.— Oct.) — Return to England (Oct. 16, 1825). "I. wonder Rousseau, who was a good judge and an admirable describer of romantic situations, should have fixed upon Vevey as the scene of the ' New Heloise.' You have passed the rocky and precipitous defiles at the entrance into the valley, and have not yet come into the open and more agreeable parts of it. " The immediate vicinity of Vevey is entirely occu- pied with vineyards slanting to the south, and inclosed between stone walls without any kind of variety or relief. The walks are uueven and bad, and you in general see little (for the walls on each side of you) but the glassy surface of the lake, the rocky barrier of the Savoy Alps opposite, .... the green hills of an inferior class over Clarens, and the winding valley lead- ing northward towards Berne and,Fribourg. " Here stands Gelamont (the name of the camyagna which we took) on a bank sloping down to the brook that passes by Vevey, and so entirely embosomed in trees and 'upland swells' that it might be called, in poetical phrase, ' the peasant's nest.' 180 vkvf.v. "Here everything was perfectly clean and com- modious. The fermier, or vineyard-keeper, with his family, lived below, and we had -ix or seven rooms on a floor (furnished with every article or convenience that a London lodging affords) for thirty napoleons for four months, or about thirty shillings a week. This first expense we found the great* sst during our stay, and nearly ecpial to all the rest, that of a servant included. " The number of English settled here had made lodg- ings dear, and one English gentleman told me he was acquainted with not less than three-and-twenty English families in the neighbourhood Mutton (equal to the besl Welsh mutton, and fed on the high ground near Moudon) is threepence: English per pound; and the beef (which is also good, though not of so fine a quality) is the same. Trout, caught in the lake, you get almost for nothing. A couple of fowls is eighteen- pence. The wine of the country, which though not rich is exceedingly palatable, is threepence a bottle. Vou may have a basket of grapes, in the season, for one shilling or fifteenpeuce (the girls who work in the vine- yards are paid threepence a day). The bread, butter, and milk are equally cheap and excellent.*. . . . "Days, weeks, months, and even years might have passed on [at Gelamont] much in the same manner, with 'but the season's difference.' We breakfasted at the same hour, and the tea-kettle was alwavs boilincr (an excellent thing in housewifery) — a lounge in the * I have permitted myself to admit these statistics, so that later travellers may compai-e notes. Besides, the passage is characteristic. AT VEVEY FOR THE SUMMER. 181 orchard for an hour or two, and twice a week we could see the steamboat creeping like a spider over the surface of the lake ; a volume of the Scotch novels (to he had in every library on the Continent in English, French, German, or Italian, as the reader pleases), or M. Galig- nani's Paris and London Observer, amused us till dinner time ; then tea, and a walk till the moon unveiled itself, .... or the brook, swollen with a transient shower, was heard more distinctly in the darkness, mingling with the soft, rustling breeze ; and the next morning the song of peasants broke upon refreshing sleep, as the sun glanced among the clustering vine-leaves, or the shadowy hills, as the mists retired from their summits, looked in at our windows. " The uniformity of this mode of life was only broken during the fifteen weeks that we remained in Switzer- land by the civilities of Monsieur Le Vade, a doctor of medicine, and octogenarian, who had been personally acquainted with Rousseau in his younger days ; by some attempts by our neighbours to lay us under obli- gations by parting with rare curiosities to Monsieur l'Anglais for half their value ; and by an excursion to Chamouni." Captain Medwin, Lord Byron's friend, called upon Mr. Hazlitt while he remained at Vevey. He describes * 4 the house as lying low, on the banks of a stream, and about half-a-mile from the town. He says : ;< The house lies very low, so that it possesses no other view from the windows than a green paddock, overshadowed by some * ' Fraser's Magazine ' for March, 1839. 1*2 A VISIT PROM CAPTAIN ME I AY IX. enormous walnut trees. Behind, and across the rivulet, rises a hill of vines, sufficiently elevated to screen out the western sun. The spot is lovely and secluded." As the annexed portrait of my grandfather was taken down on paper immediately after the visit, when the captain's impressions were fresh and distinct, it may be thought to have its value : " He was below the common height : his dress neglected ; and his chin garnished with a stubble of some days' standing. The lines of his countenance are regular, but bear distinct marks of late and intense application, and there was an habitual melancholy in the expression His figure was emaciated; and it is evident his mind has preyed upon and consumed much of the vital energies of his frame ; and this last, as was said of Shelley, seemed only a tenement for spirit." The captain transferred to his commonplace book, when he went home from the visit, the conversation I letween Mr. Hazlitt and himself. I have neither space nor inclination to give more than what appear to me the characteristic and personal portions. A good deal of it is mere repetition of what Mr. Hazlitt hod said in his writings about some of his contemporaries, Lord ! I yron included. Captain Medwin inquired how he liked Switzerland. II. "I prefer Italy, and France to either; not but that Florence (did not the climate disagree with me) is a pleasant place enough At Florence one is never at a loss how to pass time. I luxuriated in the divine treasures of its churches and galleries: I lived in them I am partial to works of art, CONVERSATION WITH MEDWIN. 183 especially paintings ; but more than all I like to study- man " In answer to Captain Medwin's stricture on French scenery, he said : — " Not so ; I never tire of corn-plains. We have too much pasturage at home, and do not understand the economy of labour as well as in France, The cattle destroy more than they eat in England. We see, too, in every patch of cultivation, that the peasantry are something in France. This division of lands was one of the happy fruits of the Revolution " He asked him how he liked the society at Florence. H. "I only knew Leigh Hunt, the author of the 'Imaginary Conversations,' and Lord Dillon. The latter, but for some twist in his brain, would have been a clever man. He has the cacoethes parlancli, like Coleridge, though he does not pump out his words I went to dine with him — the only time I ever dined at a lord's table. He had all the talk to himself; he never waits for an answer " M. "Do you really think Shakspeare was an un- learned man ?" H. "Sir, he was, if not the most learned, the best read man of his ages by which I mean that he made the best use of his reading. His ' Brutus ' and ' Antony ' and ' Coriolanus ' are real conceptions of those Eomans. His ' Romeo and Juliet ' have all the beautiful conceits of the time ; he has steeped them all in the enthusiastic tenderness of Petrarch. . . . " You know Kenny ? Coming upon him unexpectedly 184 I \. i R8I0K rO < RAMOI M. one day, I found him on the flal of his back, kicking at a prodigious rate, and apparently in strong convulsions, I ran up to him in order to assist and raise him ; but his malady was an obstetrical one : he was in all the agonies of &fau88e-cov If. 'What is the matter, Kenny?* said I. 'Oh, my dear fellow, Hazlitt,' In- said, with tears in his eyes, ' I baye been for three hours labouring hard to get OUt all idea to finish a .scene; but it won't— it won't come '" "We crossed over in a boat to St. Gingolph, a little town opposite to Vevey, and proceeded on the other side to Biartigny, from which we could pass over, either on foot or by the help of mules, to Mont Blanc It was a warm day towards the Latter end of August, and the hills before us drew their (dear outline, and the more distant Alps waved their snowy tops (tinged w itli golden sunshine) in the gently-undulating surface of the crystal lake. " As we approached the Savoy side the mountains in front, which from Vevey look like a huge battery or Hat upright wall, opened into woody recesses, or reared their crests on high ; rich streaks of the most exqui- site verdure gleamed at their feet, and St. Gingolph came distantly in view, with its dingy-looking houses and smoking chimneys. The contrast to Vevey was striking '• We walked out to take a view of the situation as soon as we had bespoken our room and a supper. It - a brilliant sunset: nor do I recollect having ever beheld so majestic and rich a scene set off to such EXCURSION TO CHAMOUNI. 185 advantage We had no power to leave it or to admire it, till the evening shades stole in upon us, and drew the dusky veil of twilight over it. " We had a pleasant walk the next morning along the side of the lake, under the grey cliffs, the green hills, and azure sky ; now passing under the open gateway of some dilapidated watch-tower .... now watching the sails of a boat slowly making its way among the trees on the banks of the Rhone " The inn where we stopped at Yionnax is bad. There is a glass-manufactory at Yionnax, which I did not go to see : others, who have more curiosity, may. It will be there (I dare say) next year for those who choose to visit it: I liked neither its glare nor its heat We supped at Martigny, at the Hotel de la Foste (formerly a convent), and the next morning proceeded by the Valley of Trie and the Col de Peaume to Chamouni. u We left the Great St. Bernard, and the road by which Buonaparte passed to Marengo, on our left, and Martigny and the Valley of the Simplon directly behind us The road was long, rough, and steep ; and from the heat of the sun, and the continual interrup- tion of loose stones and the straggling roots of trees, I felt myself exceedingiy exhausted. We had a mule, a driver, and a guide. I was, advised by all means to lessen the fatigue of the ascent by taking hold of the queue of Monsieur le Mulet, a mode of travelling partaking as little of the sublime as possible, and to which I reluctantly acceded. We at last reached the top SI. da I rodi Itol • • \\ me. • • •■V Lid ■rmd.,-1 efore a ,1,.— lthl „, - — l I 111 : "'l' 1 ' site V' 1 :itUH A ^^1> king I situation as It i tthftnUp ■ \\ . hu . t!.«- ride (»i t:.. l*k«\ umltT I ho jjn . amr grteway of Will' .. ..];•:«!• 1 Wn\ . IB . «Uj-j- I i* M i: t . .1! I i '.■■■• 1 ili< from t. • ':», til 1 . BONNET ii. i. E — c;i:m.\ a. dined, and proceeded thai night t<> Bonneville, on nearly Level ground. •• 1 have seen no country where I have been more tempted to stop and enjoy myself, where I thought the inhabitants had more reason to be satisfied, and where, if you could imt find happiness, it seemed in vain to seek farther for it Perhaps, one of these days, I may try the experiment, and turn my hack on sea-coal fires, and old English friends! "The inn a1 Bonneville was dirty, ill-provided, and, as it generally happens in such cases, the people were inattentive, and the charges high. We were, however, indemnified by the reception we met with at Geneva, where the living was luxurious, and the expense com- paratively trifling. "I shall not dwell on this subject, lest I should be thought an epicure, though, indeed, I rather 'live a man forbid,' being forced to deny myself almost all those good things which I recommend to others. " Geneva is, I think, a very neat and picturesque town, imt equal to some others we had seen, but very well for a Oalvinistic capital I was struck with the fine forms of many of the women here. "Though 1 was phased with my fare, I was not altogether delighted with the manners and appearance of the inhabitants. . . I here saw Rousseau's house, and also rend the ' Edinburgh Review' for May "The next day we passed along in the diligence through scenery of exquisite beauty and perfect cultiva- tion We saw Lausanne by moonlight We RETURN THROUGH HOLLAND. 189 arrived that night at Vevey, after a week's absence, and an exceedingly delightful tour. " We returned down the Ehine through Holland. I was willing to see the contrast between fiat and lofty, and between Venice and Amsterdam. We left Vevey on the 20th of September It was at first exceedingly hot. We hired a char-a-hancs from Vevey to Basle, and it took us four days to reach this latter place ; the expense of the conveyance was twenty-four francs a day, besides the driver. " The first part of our journey, as we ascended from the lake on the way to Moudon, was like an aerial voyage, from the elevation and the clearness of the atmosphere ; yet still through the most lovely country imaginable, and with glimpses of the grand objects behind us (seen over delicious pastures and through glittering foliage) that were truly magical. " The combinations of language, however, answer but OCT- 7 ' ill to the varieties of nature, and by repeating these de- scriptions so often I am afraid of becoming tiresome. My excuse must be that I have little to relate but what I saw. "After mounting-, to a considerable height we de- scended to Moudon. The accommodations at the inn were by no means good * The freshness of the air the next morning, and the striking beauty and rapid changes of the scenery, soon made us forget any disap- pointment we had experienced in this respect. " As we ascended a steep hill on this side of Moudon 190 GLIMPSE OF MONT Bl AXC and looked back, fii-t at the green dewy valley under our feet, with the dusky town and the blue smoke rising from it, then at the road we bad traversed the preceding evening, winding among thick groves of trees, and last at the Savoy Alps on the other side of the Lake of Geneva (with wliich we had been familiar for four months, and which seemed to! aveno mind to quit us), I perceived a bright speck close to the top of one of these | Alps]. I was delighted, and said it was Mont Blanc. "Our driver was of a different opinion, was positive it was only a cloud; and I accordingly supposed I had mistaken a sudden fancy for a reality. I began in secret to take myself to task, and to lecture myself for my proneness to build theories on the foundation of my conjectures and wishes. On turning round occa- sionally, however, I observed that this cloud remained in the same place, and I noticed the circumstance to our guide, as favouring my first suggestion. We disputed the point for half an hour, and it was not till the after- noon, when we had reached the other side of the Lake of Neufchatel, that, this same cloud, rising like a canopy over the point where it had hovered ... he acknow- ledged it to be Mont Blanc. "We were then at a distance of about forty miles from Vevey, and eighty or ninety from Chamouni We dined at Werdun (a pretty town), at the head of the lake, and passed on to Neufchatel, along its enchanting and almost unrivalled borders, having the long unaspir- ing range of the Jura on our left (from the top of which St. Preux [in the ' New Heloise '], on his return from his WERDUN, ETC. 191 wanderings round the world, first greeted that country where ' torrents of delight had poured into his heart ;' and indeed we could distinguish the ' Dent de Jamant ' right over Clarens almost the whole way) ; and on our right was the rippling lake, its low cultivated banks on the other side, then a brown rocky ridge of mountains, and the calm golden peaks of the snowy passes of the Simplon, the Great St. Bernard, and (as I was fain to believe) of Monteroso, rising into the evening sky at intervals beyond. " Meanwhile we rode on. This kind of retreat, where there is nothing to surprise, nothing to disgust, nothing to draw the attention out of itself, uniting the advan- tages of society and solitude, of simplicity and elegance, and where the mind can indulge in a sort of habitual and self-centred satisfaction, is the only one which I should never feel a wish to quit. The golden mean is, indeed, an exact description of the mode of life I should like to lead, of the style I should like to write ; but alas ! I am afraid I shall never succeed in either object of my ambition. " The next day being cloudy, we lost sight entirely of the last range of Alpine hills, and saw them no more afterwards. The road lay for some miles through an open and somewhat dreary country We had, however, the Lake of Bienne and Isle of St. Pierre in prospect before us, which are so admirably described by Bousseau in his ' Beveries of a Solitary Walker,' and to which he gives the preference over the Lake of Geneva. " The effect from the town of Bienne, where we L92 BIENNB — BASLE. stopped to dine, was not much : bul in climbing to the top of a steep sandy ln'll beyond it we saw the whole to great advantage. Evening was just closing in, and the sky was cloudy, with a few red streaks near the horizon "The inn at , where we stopped for the night, (the Rose and Crown) though almost a solitary house in a solitary valley, is a very good one, and the cheapest we met with abroad. Our bill for supper, lodging, and breakfast amounted to only seven francs. "Our route the following morning lay up a broad, steep valley, with a fine gravelly road through it, and forests of pine and other trees raised like an amphi- theatre on either side. The sun had just risen, and the drops of rain still hung upon the branches. " We stopped at the Three Kings at Basle, and were shown into a long, narrow room, which did not promise well at first ; but the waiter threw up the window at the further end, and we all at once saw the full breadth of the Rhine, rolling rapidly It was clear moonlight, and the effect was fine and unex- pected. The broad mass of water rushed by with clamorous sound and stately impetuosity, as if it were carrying a message from the mountains to the ocean. The nex1 morning we perceived that it was of a muddy colour. " We thought of passing down it in a small boat, but the covering was so low as to make the posture un- comfortable, or, if raised higher, there was a danger of COLMAR— STRASBTJRG, ETC. ' 193 its being overset by any sudden gust of wind. We therefore went by the diligence to Colroar and Stras- burg. I regretted afterwards that we did not take the right-hand road by Freybourg and the Black Forest — the woods, hills, and mouldering castles of which, as far as I could judge from a distance, are the most romantic and beautiful possible " We crossed the Ehine at Strasburg, and proceeded through Rastadt and Manheim to Mayence. We stopped the first night at the Golden Cross, at Eastadt, which is the very best inn I was at during the whole time I was abroad. Among other things, we had chiffrons for supper, which I found on inquiry were wood-partridges, which are much more highly esteemed than the field ones " We half missed the scenery between Mayence and Coblentz, the only part of the Ehine worth seeing. We saw it, however, by moonlight It was like a brilliant dream. " From Neuss to Cleves we went in the royal Prussian diligence, and from thence to Nimeguen, the first town in Holland It was a fine, clear afternoon We proceeded from Nimeguen to Utrecht and Amster- dam by the stage "All the way from Utrecht to Amsterdam, to the Hague, to Rotterdam, you might fancy yourself on Clapham Common. The canals* are lined with farms and summer-houses, with orchards and gardens of the utmost beauty, aud in excellent taste. The exterior of their buildings is as clean as the interior of ours ; their VOL. II. O l'.'l AMSTERDAM. public houses look as nice and well-ordered as our private ones. If you are np betimes in ;i morning, you see n servant-wench (the domestic Naiad) with a Leathern pipe, like that attached to fire-engine, drenching the walls and windows with pailfulsof water. With all this, they suffocate you with tobacco-smoke in their stage- coaches and canal-boats ; and you do not see a set of clean teeth from one end of Holland to the other "I was assured at Amsterdam that Rembrandt was the greatest painter in the world, and a1 Antwerp that Kubens was. The inn at Amsterdam (the Rousland) i~ one of the best I have been at; and an inn is no bad test of the civilization and diffusion of comfort in a country. We saw a play at the theatre here, and the action was exceedingly graceful and natural '• lldl land is perhaps the only country which you gain nothing by seeing. It is exactly the same as the Dutch landscapes of it. I was shown the plain and village of Etyswick, close to the Hague. It struck me I had seen something very like it before. It is the back-ground of Paul Potter's Bull. " Delft is a very model of comfort and polished neat- ness. We met with a gentleman belonging to this place in the trachschuyt, who. with other civilities, showed us his house (a perfect picture in its kind), and invited us in to rest and refresh ourselves, while the other boat was getting ready. These things are an extension of one's idea of humanity. I would not wish to lower any one's idea of England, but let him enlarge his notions of existence and enjoyment beyond it. He IMPRESSIONS OF HOLLAND. 195 will not think the worse of his own country for thinking better of human nature. " The inconveniences of travelling in Holland are that you make little way, and are forced to get out and have your luggage taken into another boat at every town you come to, which happens two or three times in the course of the day. Let no one go to the Washington Arms at Kotterdam ; it is fit only for American sea- captains " On inquiring our way, we were accosted by a Dutch servant-girl, who had lived in an English family for a year, and who spoke English better, and with less of a foreign accent, than any Frenchwoman I ever heard " There was a steam-boat here which set sail for Lon don the next day; but we preferred passing through Ghent, Lille, and Antwerp. ... We saw the Rubenses in the great church at the last The person who showed us the Taking Down from the Cross said ' it was the finest picture in the world.' I said ' One of the finest,' an answer with which he appeared by no means satisfied. "We returned by way of St. Omer and Calais. I wished to see Calais _pnce more, for it was here that I landed in France twenty years ago. [We arrived in England on the 16th of October, 1825.] " I confess London looked to rate on my return like a long, straggling, dirty country town I am not sorry, however, that I have got back. There is an old saying, Home is home, he it never so homely 19G BACK IN TOWN. " The pictures that most delighted me in Italy were those I had before seen in the Louvre ' with eyes of youth.' I could revive this feeling of enthusiasm, but not transfer it " Since my return I have put myself on a regimen of brown bread, beef, and tea, and have thus defeated the systematic conspiracy carried on against weak digestions. To those accustomed to, and who can indulge in foreign luxuries, this list will seem far from satisfactory. " Mr. Hazlitt and his son returned home alone. Mrs. Hazlitt had stopped behind. At the end of a fortnight he wrote to her, asking her when he should come to fetch her ; and the answer which he got was that she had proceeded on to Switzerland with her sister, and that they had parted for ever ! It appears that my father was excessively hurt and indignant at the whole affair from the first outset, and con- sidered that his own mother had been ill-used — in which there was a considerable share of truth, no doubt ; and when he joined his father and stepmother abroad, he, mere child as he was, seems to have been very pointed and severe in his remarks upon the matter. This probably gave Mrs. Hazlitt a foretaste of what she might have to expect on her return to England, and led to the determination referred to. At any rate, they never met again. Their union had f been short enough. It amounted scarcelv to more than an episode. 197 CHAPTER XVI. 1825-1827. The ' Elegant Extracts ' — ' Boswell Redivivus.' In 1825 Mr. Hazlitt, assisted by his son, Mr. Procter, Mr. Lamb,* and somebody else, whose name I do not recall, prepared for publication a volume of Elegant Extracts from the English Poets. The selections were made from Chalmers' large collection ; and Leigh Hunt's copy of that work was had for the purpose. Altogether it was a somewhat corporate undertaking — a book, as it were, brought out by a Limited Company. It passes commonly, however, under Mr. Hazlitt's name, as if he had been the sole person concerned in it ; whereas, I believe that his share was by no means very consider- able. It was not a task to his taste, to begin with. It happened, unluckily, that some copyright authors were included by one or other of the Co. ; an injunction was procured by those interested, or at least threatened ; and the copies were sent to America, or otherwise smuggled. A few had got into circulation, and may still be met with, though rarely ; and the volume was reissued the same year by Mr. Tegg, with a new title * Lamb corrected the proofs, I have heard it stated, during his friend's absence abroad. \US ACQUAINTANCE BETWEEN and a frontispiece, the name of "W. Hazlitt, Esq.," remaining in the forefront as the editor. The legend is that Mr. Hunt's copy of < "hahners's ' Poets ' was returned to him in an indifferent plight An edition of John Buncle, which appeared in 1825, in three duodecimo volumes, has been given to him in some of the catalogues — I believe, without any authority. He was abroad from August, 1824, to October, 1825, and his name appears nowhere in the book. On the other hand, I have heard it stated, not as a fact, but as an impression, that his friend Lamb had to do with it. Perhaps he merely recommended it to the publisher as a work not unlikely to sell. So far back as 1802, Mr. Hazlitt had become ac- quainted, through his brother John, with Mr. Northcote the artist. Northcote had seen a great deal, heard a great deal, read a great deal ; he was a shrewd observer, and a person of average conversational powers ; and Mr. Hazlitt and he found many common topics. Northcote was an ill-conditioned, malevolent, mean- spirited person, for whom nobody probably ever enter- tained any real regard. My grandfather had a strong relish for his society, and a sort of liking for the man himself, which he would have found it rather hard to explain on any ordinary principle. It was, no doubt, Northcote's rare vivacity, abundance of anecdote, and recollections of bygone people which drew Mr. Hazlitt to his studio so frequently, apart from any advantage in any shape which he derived from this source. Fuseli said of Northcote's portrait, " By Cot, he's ME. HAZLITT AND MR. NOETHCOTE. 199 looking sharp for a rat !" and here he hit off the old artist's character to a nicety. Colburn published his 'Life of Titian,' and he used to say, "That little wretch Colburn wants to rob rne of all my money !" I suppose Colburn did not think the life would pay, and suggested a subsidy in aid. It is Northcote who is pointed at, where Mr. Hazlitt says : — " The person whose doors I enter with most pleasure, and quit with the most regret, never did me the smallest favour. I once did him an uncalled-for service, and we nearly quarrelled about it. If I were in the utmost distress, I should just as soon think of asking his assistance as of stopping a person on the highway. Practical benevolence is not his forte. He leaves the profession of that to others. His habits, his theory are against it as idle and vulgar. His hand is closed ; but what of that ? His eye is ever open, and reflects the universe : his silver accents, beautiful, venerable as his silver hairs, but not scanted, flow as a river. I never ate or drank in his house ; nor do I know or care how the flies or spiders fare in it, or whether a mouse can get a living. But I know that I can get there what I can get nowhere else — a welcome, as if one was expected to drop in just at that moment, a total absence of all respect of persons, and of airs of self- consequence, endless topics of discourse, refined thoughts, made more striking by ease and simplicity of manner — the husk, the shell of humanity is left at the door, and the spirit, mellowed by time, resides within ! 200 CONVERSATIONS WITH NORTHCOTE : "I asked leave," says my grandfather, "to write down i»i)t' or two of these conversations ; he [Northcote] said I might, if I thought it worth while ; ' but,' he said, ' 1 do assure you that you overrate them. You have not lived enough in society to be a judge. What is new to you you think will seem so to others. To be sure, tlure is one thing, I have had the advantage of having lived in good society myself. I not only passed a great deal of my younger days in the company of Reynolds, Johnson, and that circle, but I was brought up among the Modges, of whom Sir Joshua (who was certainly used to the most brilliant society of the me- tropolis) thought so highly that he had them at his house for weeks, and even sometimes gave up his own bedroom to receive them. Yet they were not thought superior to several other persons at Plymouth, who were distinguished, some for their satirical wit, others for their delightful fancy, others for their information or sound sense, and with all of whom my father was familiar, when I was a boy.' "My friend Mr. Northcote is a determined Whig. I have, however, generally taken him as my lay-figure, or model, and worked upon it, selon mon grS, by fancying how he would express himself on any occasion, and making up a conversation according to this preconcep- tion in my mind. I have also introduced little in- cidental details that never happened ; thus, by lying, giving a greater air of truth to the scene — an art under- stood bv most historians ! In a word, Mr. Xorthrote is only answerable for the wit, sense, and spirit there may THEIR ORIGIN AND CHARACTER. 201 be in these papers : I take all the dulness, impertinence, and malice upon myself. He has furnished the text — I fear I have often spoiled it by the commentary. Or (to give it a more favourable turn) I have expanded him into a book, as another friend* has continued the history of the Honeycombs down to the present period. My ' Dialogues ' are done much upon the same principle as the ' Family Journal :' I shall be more than satisfied if they are thought to possess but half the spirit and verisimilitude. " [I told him that] when Godwin wrote his ' Life of Chaucer/t he was said to have turned Papist from his having made use of sometliing I had said to him about confession. " Northcote asked if I had sent my son to school ? I said I thought of the Charter House, if I could compass it. I liked those old-established places, where learning grew for hundreds of years, better than any new-fangled experiments or modern seminaries. He inquired if I had ever thought of putting him to school on the Continent; to which I answered, No, for I wished him to have an idea of home before I took him abroad ; by beginning in the contrary method, I thought, I deprived him both of the habitual attachment to the one and of the romantic pleasure in the other. "Northcote spoke in raptures of the power in Cobbett's writings, and asked Ine if I had ever seen * Leigh Hunt. f See a droll account of this book in a letter from Sir W. Scott to George Ellis (Lockbart, ii. 177). 202 CONVERSATIONS WITH NORTHCOTE. him. 1 said I had f<>r a short time; that he called rogue and scoundrel at every second word in the coolest way imaginable, and went on just the same in a room as on paper. "I had <>nce, I said, given great offence to a knot of persons by contending that Jacob's Dream was finer than anything in Shakspeare ; and that Hamlet would bear no comparison with at least one character in the New Testament. A young poet had said on this occa- sion that he did not like the Bible, because there was nothing about flowers in it ; and I asked him if he had forgot that passage, ' Behold the lilies of the field,' &c. "I mentioned to Xorthcote the pleasure I had formerly taken in a little print of Gadshill from a sketch of his own, which I used at one time to pass a certain shop-window on purpose to look at. He said ' it was impossible to tell beforehand what would hit the publie. You might as well pretend to say what ticket would turn up a prize in the lottery.' " I remarked that I believed corporations of art or letters might meet with a certain attention, but it was the stragglers and candidates that were knocked about with very little ceremony Those of my own way of thinking were ' bitter bad judges ' on this point. A Tory scribe, who treated mankind as rabble and canaille, was regarded by them in return as a fine gentle- man : a reformer like myself, who stood up for liberty and equality, was taken at his word by the very journeyman that set up his paragraphs, and could not get a civil answer from the meanest shop-boy in the CONVERSATIONS WITH NORTHCOTE. 203 employ of those on his own side of the question. Northcote laughed, and said I irritated myself too much about such things. He said it was one of Sir Joshua's maxims that the art of life consisted in not being overset by trifles. " I inquired if he had read ' Woodstock ?' He an- swered, ' No, he had not been able to get it.' I said I had been obliged to pay five shillings for the loan of it at a regular bookseller's shop (I could not procure it at the circulating libraries) ; and that, from the understood feeling about Sir Walter, no objection was made to this proposal, which would in ordinary cases have been construed into an affront. I had well nigh repented my bargain, but there were one or two scenes that repaid me (though none equal to his best), and in general it was very indifferent. " I mentioned having once had a vary smart debate with Godwin about a young lady, of whom I had been speaking as very much like her aunt, a celebrated authoress, and as what the latter, I conceived, might have been at her time of life. Godwin said, when Miss did anything like Evelina or Cecilia, he should then believe she was as clever as Madame D'Arblay. I asked him whether he did not think Miss Burney was as clever before she wrote those novels as she was after ; or whether in general an author wrote a suc- cessful work for being clever, or was clever because he wrote a successful work ? "I said, 'I am glad to hear you speak so of Guido. I was beginning, before I went abroad, to have 204 CONVERSATIONS WITH NORTHCOTE. a " sneaking contempt " for him as insipid and mono- tonous, from seeing the same everlasting repetitions of Cleopatras and Madonnas ; but I returned a convert to his merits. I saw many indifferent pictures attributed to great masters ; but wherever I saw a Guido, I found eloquence and beauty that answered to the " silver " sound of his name.' " On my excusing myself to North cote for some blunder in history by saying ' I really had not time to read,' he said, ' no, but you have time to write.' And once a celebrated critic taking me to task as to the subject of my pursuits, and receiving regularly the same answer to his queries, that I knew nothing of chemistry, nothing of astronomy, of botany, of law, of politics, &c, at last exclaimed, somewhat impatiently, ' What the devil is it then you do know ? ' I laughed, and was not very much disconcerted at the reproof, as it was just." " I said [to Northcote] authors alone were privileged to suppose that all excellence was confined to words. Till I was twenty, I thought there was nothing in the world but books. When I began to paint, I found there were two things both difficult to do and worth doing ; and I concluded from that there might be fifty. At least I was willing to allow every one his own choice. I recollect a certain poet * saying ' he should like to ham- string those fellows at the Opera.' I suppose, because the great would rather see them dance than read ' Kehama.' " Mr. Northcote enlarges with enthusiasm on the old painters, and tells good things of the new. The only * Southey. CONVERSATIONS WITH NORTHCOTE. 205 thing he ever vexed me in was his liking the ' Catalogue Baissonnee.' I had almost as soon hear him talk of Titian's pictures (which lie does with tears in his eyes, and looking just like them) as see the originals ; and I had rather hear him talk of Sir Joshua's than see them. He is the last of that school who knew Goldsmith and Johnson. How finely he describes Pope ! .... 1 never ate or drank with Mr. Northcote, but I have lived on his conversation with undiminished relish ever since I can remember ; and when I leave it, I come out into the street with feelings lighter and more ethereal than I have at any other time." Northcote was afraid that what my grandfather had said about Sir Walter Scott might give offence ; but my grandfather assured him that authors like to be talked about, and that if Sir Walter objected to having his name mentioned, he was singularly unlucky. My grandfather remarked to Northcote on this occasion : " Enough was said in his praise ; and I do not believe he is captious. I fancy he takes the rough with the smooth. I did not well know what to do. You seemed to express a wish that the conversations should proceed, and yet you are startled at particular phrases ; or I would have brought you what I had done to show you. I thought it best to take my 'chance of the general impression." Northcote answered that, if the conversations had been published posthumously, there would have been no harm done, for people would not care to ask ques- Lin'. CONVERSATIONS "WITH NOKTIlroTK. tions about them. He did not Bee much in them him- self, but he thought that might be, because they were nut new to him. He expressed surprise that my grand- father, who know so many celebrated authors, should not find anything of theirs worth recording, which gave the other occasion to observe thai (Jodwin was very angry at the liberty he bad taken, but that (Jodwin was quite safe from having such freedom used with him. lb- ["Mr. II.] should never think of repeating any of Godwin's conversations. Mr. Bazlitt said to Northcote that he recollected, when he was formerly trying to paint, nothing gave him the horrors so much as passing the old battered portraits at the doors of brokers' shops, with the morning sun flaring full upon them. He was generally inclined to prolong his walk and put off painting for that day; but the sight of a tine picture had a contrary effect, and he went back and set to work with redoubled ardour. One day, when Mr. Hazlitt went into Northcote's, Northcote said to him, " Sir, there's been such a beauti- ful murder." The old painter was very fond of reading, and hearing, and talking of all the atrocities of this kind that occurred in his day. He regarded them, like De Quincey, from an artistic point of view. Speaking of Lord Byron's opinions, especially his notions about Shakspeare, Mr. Hazlitt once observed to Northcote, " I do not care much about his opinions." Northcote remarked that they were evidently capricious, and taken up in the spirit of contradiction. Mr. Haz- litt continued, "Not only so (as far as I can judge), CONVERSATIONS WITH NOETHCOTE. 207 but without any better founded ones in his own mind. They appear to me conclusions without premises or any previous process of thought or inquiry. I like old opinions with new reasons, not new opinions without any ; not mere ipse dixits. He was too arrogant to assign a reason to others or to need one for himself. It was quite enough that he subscribed to any assertion to make it clear to the world, as well as binding on his valet." Mr. Hazlitt asked Northcote if he remembered the name of Stringer at the Academy, when he first came up to town. Northcote said he did, and that he drew very well, and once put the figure for him in a better posi- tion to catch the foreshortening. Northcote then in- quired if Mr. Hazlitt knew anything about him ; and Mr. H. said he had once vainly tried to copy a head of a youth by him, admirably drawn and coloured, and in which he had attempted to give the effect of double vision by a second outline accompanying the contour of the face and features. Though the design might not be in good taste, it was executed in a way that made it next to impossible to imitate. Mr. Hazlitt was grateful to Northcote for admiring ' No Song, no Supper,' which was the first play he (Mr. H.) had ever seen. Northcote remarked that it was very delightful, but that the players had cut a good deal out. Mr. Hazlitt once said to Northcote, in answer to a question, that he liked Sir Walter Scott " on this side of idolatry and Toryism." Scott reminded him of Cobbett, with his florid face and scarlet gown, like the other's red face and scarlet waistcoat. 20S CONVERSATIONS WITH NORTIICOTE. When Mr. llazlitt was at Calais in 1825, he was offended at a waiter who bad misbehaved; and while the fellow was out of the room he tried to "call up a look " against the time he r< turned. Ihit he found this sort of ''previous rehearsal" of no use. When the waiter came back Mr. II. assumed an expression in- voluntarily or spontaneously, which made it unnecessary to say anything; and he mentioned afterwards to North- cote that it seemed to him this was just the difference between good acting and bad. between faee-inaking and genuine passion. For, " to give the last," he remarked, " an actor must possess the highest truth of imagina- tion, and must undergo an entire revolution of feeling." Mr. Hazlitt says : — " He asked me if I had seen anything of Haydon ? I said yes, and that he had vexed me ; for I had shown him some fine heads from the cartoons done about a hundred years ago (which appeared to me to prove that since that period those noble remains have fallen into a state of considerable decay), and when I went out of the room for a moment, I found the prints thrown carelessly on the table, and that he had got out a volume of Tasso." Some of the conversations possess even now consider- able interest. My grandfather lias been thought unjust to Wordsworth. Now, in his lectures, he spoke hand- somely enough of him, at a time when he was only just rising into notice; in his 'Spirit of the Age,' 1825, he does the same ; and in the last place where he had an MR. HAZLITT AND WORDSWORTH. 209 opportunity of giving expression to such criticisms — these conversations — he has set down for us the argu- ments which Northcote used against Wordsworth, and his own remarks in vindication of that poet. Mr. Haz- litt, however, certainly feared that the want of popu- larity which Wordsworth suffered in his lifetime, would militate against his future fame ; and he gave his reasons ; which were these : "Few persons," he said, "made much noise after their deaths, who did not do so while they were living. Posterity could not be supposed to rake into the records of past times for the illustrious Obscure ; and only ratified or annulled the lists of great names handed down to them by the voice of common fame. Few people recovered from the neglect or obloquy of their contemporaries. The public would hardly be at the pains to try the same cause twice over, or did not like to reverse its own sentence, at least when on the un- favourable side." Northcote was of opinion that my grandfather abandoned too hastily the profession of a painter. He said to him, at an early stage of their acquaintance, " I wanted to ask you about a speech you made the other day ; you said you thought you could have made some- thing of portrait, but that you never could have painted history. What did you mean by that ?" Whereupon Mr. Hazlitt observed : " Oh, all I meant was, that sometimes when I see a Titian or liembrandt, I feel as if I could have done something of the same kind with proper pains, but I have never the same VOL. II P 210 THE CONVERSATION'S PUBLISHED. feeling with respect to Raphael. My admiration there is utterly unmixed with emulation or regret. Iii fact, I see whal is before me, bul I have no invention." But Northcote thought differently, and considered that his companion mighl have succeeded, if he had tried. My grandfather, haying received permission from Mr. Northcote, printed in Colburn's 'New Monthly Magazine/ at intervals, notes of these conversations, under the title of ' Iioswrll Kedivivus.' Four sections appeared in the course of 1826. "Hazlitt's mode," observes Mr. Fatmore, "of turning Nbrthcote's conversation to a business account, while the ' Boswell liedivivus' was appearing in the 'New Monthly Magazine,' was sufficiently curious and charac- teristic. . . . When the time was at hand for pre- paring a number of the papers, he used to ask me, ' Have you seen Northcote lately ? Is he in talking cue? for I must go in a day or two, and get an article out of him.' .... The simple truth in this matter is, that it was the astonishing acuteness and sagacity of Hazlitt's remarks that called into active being, if they did not actually create, much of what was noticeable in Northcote's conversation." " He was sure to be unusually entertaining after a morning in Argyll Street," says the same writer, and I know that he would go round to Broad Street on these occasions, and retail to the Reynells all that he had heard — all that Northcote had said to him, and what he said to Northcote back. " In regard to the facts and anecdotes," Mr. Fatmore AN AWKWARD DILEMMA. 211 continues, " related in these conversations, I believe Hazlitt to have been scrupulously exact in his. reports." But it so happened that in ' Boswell Eedivivus,' No. 6, the reporter carried his exactitude and portrait-paint- ing propensity too far, and published some disparaging remarks of Northcote's upon Dr. Mudge and his family — the same Mudges who had been so intimate with Reynolds. " The crime of Hazlitt," as Mr. Patmore puts it very well, " was not to have known, as if by instinct, what Hazlitt, so far from being bound to know, could not possibly have been acquainted with, except through the direct information of Northcote himself — namely, that he (Northcote) had particular and personal reasons for desiring not to be suspected of being the expositor of these obnoxious truths " The old painter, however, was furious, and almost hysterical with indignation against the diabolical Hazlitt. He sent over for Mr. Colburn, the publisher of the magazine, and Mr. Colburn would not come. He called upon Mr. Colburn, and Mr. Colburn would not see him. He wrote to Mr. Campbell, the editor, a letter expres- sing his amazement and disgust at the conduct of the diabolical Hazlitt, and Mr. Campbell wrote back to say, yes, it was disgusting, and he was amazed too ; and " the infernal Hazlitt should never write another line in the magazine during his management of it."* * He does not seem to have been aware of Campbell's state of feeling respecting hini, or to have made light of it, for see his handsome tribute to that writer's genius in the ' Spirit of 212 i in: am i-i i.i m \\. Mr. Northcote returned an answer to say ho was greatly reb'eved, adding, "I have only to beg of you that ray name, as hai Ing interfered in those, to me, awful papers, may never be mentioned in your magazine, because it would be avowing a connection with them which I wish to avoid." The soul of the jest is in the threefold fact, that Mr. Hazlitt ami Mr. X<>rthcote saw just as much of each other as before; that Mr. Hazlitt took notes of Mr. Northcote's conversations, with the artist's perfect privity, as before; and that these conversations were print •!. as Mr. Hazlitt chose to send them in, in CoTbwrri* .Y o ' Monthly, as before!* It appears that Northcote consulted my grandfather about his 'Fables,' of which there were two series pub- lished. Northcote once showed 31r. Hazlitt a note he had received from his bookseller about them, which pleased him (Mr. H.), but when Northcote afterwards showed it to Godwin, Godwin did not see it in the same Ught.t the Age.' Certainly Campbell does not come very creditably out of these editorial combats. A letter, signal Veritas, ap- peared in the Examiner of May 4, 1833. stating that " all the ill nature in the book is Northcote's, and all, or almost all, thf> talent, Hazlitt* * Anybody desirous of gaining a more perfect insight into Northcote's share in this business, ma) - consult A. Cunning- ham's ' Lives of the Painters,' vii. 107-16. Mr. Northcote's behaviour was ' characteristically hypocritical and paltry throughout. f It may be here just mentioned that my grandfather helped Northcote with what is called ' The Life of Titian,' a strange THE SO-CALLED 'LIFE OF TITIAN.' 213 jumble, which was printed in 1830, in two volumes octavo, and of which N. did some, my grandfather some, and my father the rest ! The total result is not, it must be confessed, highly satisfactory ; but the appendices contain, inter alia, a reprint of the article originally printed in the Champion of 1814 : ' Whether the Fine Arts are pi-omoted by Academies ?' With this, however, shoidd have been given the letter of Mr. H. to the Champion of October 2, 1814, in vindication of what he had written. 211 CHAPTER XVII. 1826-1828. Still hard at work — The 'Spirit of the Age' — The 'Plain SjirakiT ' — Contributions to periodicals — 'The Lit'*-- of Napoleon ' — Autol >i< graphical passages. During these years, the strange controversy respect- ing the 'Boswell Kedivivus' was almost, I think, the sole incident which disturbed the comparatively tranquil tenor of ]\Ir. Hazlitt's life. His health was not very good, but he contrived to get through an astonishing quantity of " copy." In 1825, was published ' The Spirit of the Age, or Contemporary Portraits,' which had originally come out in numbers in the ' New Monthly ;' and it reached a second edition in 1826. His name was not on the title-page; but it was soon generally known whose the book was. In 1826, Mr. Colburn published ' The Plain Speaker ; Opinions on Men, Books, and Things,' in two volumes octavo, also anonymously ; and Galignani produced a single octavo which he called 'Table-Talk,' this year, but which was merely a selection from the book properly bearing thai title, and from the 'Plain Speaker.' The negotiations for the ' Notes of a Journey through PAPERS IN ' LONDON WEEKLY REVIEW,' ETC. 215 France and Italy,' resulted in their collective publication by Messrs. Hunt and Clarke ; in a copy before me, the author's name is printed on the title-page, but in all others which I have examined, the book is anonymous. He continued, though at long intervals, to write for the Examiner, and in the number for November 18, 1827, was inserted a paper entitled ' The Dandy School,' being a criticism on ' Vivian Grey,' and books of that calibre and tendency. He also had a new channel opened to him in Mr. (since Major) D. L. Richardson's ' London Weekly Review,' and here, during 1826 and the two following years, he obtained the insertion of several of not the least agreeable effusions of his prolific and versatile pen. Many of these have never been reprinted, and yet are deserving of preservation in a permanent shape. His handwriting was always welcome, too, at New Burlington Street ; and besides the serial ' Eoswell Re- divivus ' in Colburn's ' New Monthly,' he had there the rather well-known essay ' On Persons one would wish to have seen,' — founded on an incident of twenty years' standing. Nor were, these more than collateral employments entered into to supply the necessities of the hour : for he was fully engaged, from the beginning of 1827 on- ward, upon the work which was to crown the edifice, and to keep his name green, when nothing else of his doing perhaps could, among Englishmen. His ' Life of Napoleon Buonaparte ' was already on the stocks. 216 THE 'LIFE OF NAPOLEON ' BEGUN. II'- seems to bave had his ' Life of Napoleon' in view as early as the summer of 1825, when he was at Vevey. In a ('oiivcrsati >n with Captain Medwin, who called 00 him twice while he stayed there, he observed, "I will write a Life of Napoleon, though it is yet too early : some have a film before their eyes, some want magni- fy in g-g lasses — none see him as he is, in his true pro- I mil i!' the Becond, were ready for the printer, when he was overtaken by indisposition, and came up to London for advice. He hail probably overtaxed his ] towers, for in the country it was frequently Ins custom (the evenings hanging heavily on his hands) to work what he called "double tides." Among the authorities which he employed were P.ourrienne, Las Cases, the Abbe Sieyes, and Antom- marchi. I do not think that he resorted much to the writers on the other side of the question. There was to have been a preface, and one was ac- tually set up, but eventually suppressed by the advice of the publishers, I believe. The proof-sheet, as the author finally revised it, is still preserved, and no more remarkable illustration could be desired or furnished of the deep root which the subject had taken in Ins heart, and the absorbing interesl which he felt in its completion, as tjie one thing to be accomplished before his death, than a note in his own handwriting which accompanied the proof on its return to the publishers : — a letter upon it. 217 " Dear Sir, " I thought all the world agreed with me at present that Buonaparte was better than the Bourbons, or that a tyrant was better than tyranny. In my opinion, no one of an understanding above the rank of a lady's wait- ing-maid could ever have doubted this, though I alone said it ten years ago. It might be impolicy then and now for what I know, for the world stick to an opinion in appearance long after they have given it up in reality. I should like to know whether the preface is thought impolitic by some one who agrees with me in the main point, or by some one who differs with me and makes this excuse not to have his opinion contradicted ? In Paris (jubes regina renovare dolorem) the preface was thought a masterpiece, the best and only possible defence of Buonaparte, and quite new there ! It would be an impertinence in me to write a Life of Buonaparte after Sir W.* without some such object as that expressed in the preface. After all, I do not care a damn about the preface. It will get me on four pages somewhere else. Shall I retract my opinion altogether, and foreswear my own book ? Bayner is right to cry out : I think I have tipped him fair and foul copy, a lean rabbit and a fat one. The remainder of vol. ii. will be ready to go on with7 but not the beginning of the third. The appen- dixes had better be at the end- of second vol. Pray get them if you can : you have my Sieves, have you not ? One of them is there. I have been nearly in the other world. My regret was ' to die and leave the world " rough " copy.' Otherwise I had thought of an epitaph * Sir Walter Scott. 218 His EPITAPH WRITTEN BY HIM8ELP. and a good end. Hie jaeent relifpiia.' niortales < Julielmi Ha/Iitt. auctoris non intelligibilis : natus Maidstoniffl in comi[ta]tu Cantioe, Apr. LO, 177s. Obiil Winter- slowe, l>cc, l v _!7. I think of writing an epistle to C. Lam 1 1. Esq., to say that I have passed near the shadowy world, and have had new impressions of the vanity of this, with hopes of a better. Don't yon think this would be good policy? Don't mention it to the severe author of the 'Press,' a poem,* but methinks the idea arridet Hone. He would give sixpence to see me floating, upon a pair of borrowed wings, half way between heaven and earth, and edifying the good people at my departure, whom I shall only scandalize by remaining. At present my study and contemplation is the leg of a stewed fowl. I have behaved like a saint, and been obedient to orders. " Non fit pug il, &c, I got a violent spasm by walking fifteen miles in the mud, and getting into a coach with an old lady who would have the window open. Delicacy, moderation, complaisance, the suaviter in modo, whisper it about, my dear Clarke, these are my faults and have been my ruin. " Yours ever, W, H. " December 7, [1827]. " I can't go to work before Sunday or Monday. By then the doctor says he shall have made a new man of me. " Pray how's your sister ?" [C. Cowden Clarke, Esq.] * Mr. McCleery, the printer. THE 'LIFE OF NAPOLEON' PARTLY PUBLISHED. 219 There are few salient points or striking passages of his life which he has omitted to touch upon, or glance at. There is even a little sketch, from his own hand, of his feelings and thoughts as he lay stretched (an un- willing prisoner) on this bed of sickness in the winter of 1827 ; and these are his words : — "I see (as I awake from a short, uneasy doze) a golden light shine through my white window curtains on the opposite wall. Is it the dawn of a new day, or the depart- ing light of evening? I do not well know, for the opium ' they have drugged my posset with ' has made strange havoc with my brain, and I am uncertain whether time has stood still, or advanced, or gone backward." The second volume of the ' Life of Napoleon ' was finished in time to enable Messrs. Hunt and Clarke, who had undertaken the publication, to issue volumes I. and II, in 1828. Volumes III. and IV. were, as the book- sellers phrase it, " in active preparation ;" and the author had determined to bring in the rejected preface as an ordinary paragraph at the commencement of the former. He had gone back to Winterslow Hut, and there, in the February of 1828, " in the intervals of business," he committed to writing these Recollections,* which are autobiography, if I err not, of a very pleasant descrip- tion. But I must, by way of preface, introduce his ac- count of the sensations he experienced on his recovery from this very serious indisposition. " Returning back to life with half-strung nerves and * They constitute the essay called ' A Farewell to Essay Writing,' printed in Winterslow, 1850, but written in February, 1828. 220 ai-tobiockai'iiv (1828). shattered strength, we seem as when we first entered it with uncertain purposes and faltering aims Every- thing is seen through a medium <>!' reflection and con- tract. "\Y.- hear the sound of merry voices in the street; and this carries us back to the recollections of some country-town or village group — We see the children sporting on the shore, And hear the mighty waters roaring evermore. A cricket chirps on the hearth, and we are reminded of Christmas gambols long ago. The very cries in the street seem to be of a former date, and the dry toast eats very much as it did twenty years ago. A rose smells doubly sweet after being stifled with tinctures and essences, and we enjoy the idea of a journey and an inn the more for having been bed-rid. But a book is the secret and sure charm to bring all these implied associations to a focus. I should prefer an old one, Mr. Lamb's favourite, the ' Journey to Lisbon ;' or the ' Decameron,' if I could get it ; but if a new one, let it be ' Paul Clifford.' " Food, warmth, sleep, and a book : these are all I at present ask — the Lite ma Thule of my wandering desires. Do you not then wish for A friend in your retreat, Whom you may whisper, solitude is sweet ? Expected, well enough : — gone, still better. Such at- tract ions are strengthened by distance. Nor a mistress ? 'Beautiful mask! I know thee!' When I can judge of the heart from the face, of the thoughts from the lips, I may again trust myself. Instead of these, give AUTOBIOGKAPHY (1828). 221 me the robin red-breast, pecking the crumbs at the door, or warbling on the leafless spray, the same glancing form that has followed me wherever I have been and ' done its spiriting gently :' or the rich notes of the thrush that startle the ear of winter, and seem to have drunk up the full draught of joy from the very sense of contrast. To these I adhere, and am faithful, for they are true to me ; and, dear in themselves, are dearer for the sake of what is departed, leading me back (by the hand) to that dreaming world, in the innocence of which they sat and made sweet music, waking the promise of future years, and answered by the eager throbbings of my own breast. " But now 'the credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,' and I turn back from the world that has deceived me, to nature that lent it a false beauty, and that keeps up the illusion of the past. As I quaff my libations of tea in a morning, I love to watch the clouds sailing from the west, and fancy that ' the spring comes slowly up this way.' In this hope, while ' fields are dank and ways are mire,' I follow the same direction to a neighbouring wood,* where, having gained the dry, level greensward, I can see my way for a mile before, closed in on each side by copse-wood, and ending in a point of light more or less brilliant, as the day is bright or cloudy. What a walk is this to me ! I have no need of book or companion ; the days, the hours, the thoughts of my youth are at my side, and blend with the air that fans my cheek. " Here I can saunter for hours, bending my eye for- * He must allude to Clarendon Wood, near Winterslow. 222 AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1828). ward, stopping and turning to look back, thinking to strike off into sonic less trodden path, yet hesitating to quit the one I am in, afraid to Bnap the brittle threads of 'memory. I remark the shining trunks and slender branches of the birch-trees, waving in the idle breeze; or a pheasant springs up on whirring wing: or I recall the spot where I once found a wood-pigeon at the foot of a tree, weltering in its gore, and think how many seasons have flown since ' it left its little life in air.' Dates, names, faces, come back — to what purpose ? or why think of them now? or rather, why not think of them oftener? We walk through life as through a narrow path, with a thin curtain drawn round it ; behind are ranged rich portraits, airy harps arc strung — yet we will not stretch forth our hands and lift aside the veil, to catch glimpses of the one, or sweep the chords of the other. "As in a theatre, when the old-fashioned green curtain drew up, groups of figures, fantastic dresses, laughing faces, rich banquets, stately columns, gleam- ing vistas appeared beyond ; so we have only at any time to ' peep through the blanket of the past,' to possess ourselves at once of all that has regaled our senses, that is stored up in our memory, that has struck our fancy, that has pierced our hearts : yet to all this we are indifferent, insensible, and seem intent only on the present vexation, the future dis- appointment. If there is a Titian hanging up in the room with me, I scarcely regard it ; how then should I be expected to strain the mental eye so far, or to AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1828). 223 throw down, by the magic spells of the will, the stone walls that enclose it in the Louvre ? " There is one head there of which I have often thought, when looking at it, that nothing should ever disturb me again, and I would become the character it represents — such perfect calm and self-possession reigns in it! Why- do I not hang an image of this in some dusky corner of my brain, and turn an eye upon it ever and anon, as I have need of some such talisman to calm my troubled thoughts ? The attempt is fruitless, if not natural ; or, like that of the French, to hang garlands on the grave, and to conjure back the dead by miniature-pictures of. them while living ! It is onlv some actual coin- cidence, or local association, that tends, without violence, to 'open all the cells where memory slept.' I can easily, by stooping over the long-sprent grass and clay- cold clod, recall the tufts and primroses, or purple hya- cinths, that formerly grew on the same spot, and cover the bushes with leaves and singing-birds as they were eighteen summers ago : or, prolonging my walk, and hearing the sighing gale rustle through a tall, straight wood at the end of it, can fancy that I distinguish the cry of hounds, and the fatal group issuing from it as in the tale of ' Theodore and Honoria.' A moaning gust of y wind aids the belief ; I look once more to see whether the trees before me answer to the idea of the horror-stricken grove, and an air-built city towers over their grey tops — Of all the cities in Romanian lands. The chief and most renown'd, Ravenna, stands. 224 A.UT0BI0GRAPH1 (1828). "I return home resolved to read the entire poem through, and, after dinner drawing my chair to the fire, and holding a small print close to my eyes, launch into the full tide of Dryden's couplets (a stream of sound), comparing his didactic and descriptive pomp with the simple pathos and picturesque truth of 13oc- cacio's story, and tasting with a pleasure, which none but an habitual reader can feel, some quaint examples of pronunciation in this accomplished versifier — \\ Iiicli, when Honoria viewed, The tVc-.li impulse her former fright renew'd. Theodore and Honoria. And made th' inxuM which in his grief appears, The means to mourn thee with my pious tears. Sigismonda a/nd Guiscardo. These trifling instances of the wavering and unsettled state of the language give double effect to the firm and -lately march of the verse, and make me dwell with a sort of tender interest on the difficulties and doubts of an earlier period of literature. They pronounced words then in a manner which we should laugh at now ; and they wrote verse in a manner which we can do anything but laugh at. The pride of a new acquisition seems to give fresh confidence to it ; to impel the rolling syllables through the moulds provided for them, and to overflow the envious bounds of rhyme into time-honoured triplets. •• What sometimes surprises me in looking back to the past is, with the exception already stated, to find myself bo little changed in the time. The same images and trains of thought stick by me: I have the same tastes, likings, sentiments, and wishes that I had then. AUTOBIOGEAPHY (1828). 225 " One great ground of confidence and support has, in- deed, been struck from under my feet ; but I have made it up to myself by proportionable pertinacity of opinion. The success of the great cause, to which I had vowed mvself, was to me more than all the world. I had a strength in its strength, a resource which I knew not of, till it failed me for the second time : Fall'n was Glenartney's stately tree ! Oil, ne'er to see Lord Ronald more ! " It was not till I saw the axe laid to the root, that I found the full extent of what I had to lose and suffer. But my conviction of the right was only established by the triumph of the wrong ; and my earliest hopes will be my last regrets. One source of this unbendingness (which some may call obstinacy) is that, though living much alone, I have never . worshipped the echo. I see plainly enough that black is not white, that the grass is green, that kings are not their subjects ; and, in such self-evident cases, do not think it necessary to collate my opinions with the received prejudices. In subtler questions, and matters that admit of doubt, as I do not impose my opinion on others without a reason, so I will not give up mine to them without a better reason ; and a person calling me names, or giving himself airs of authority, does not convince 'me of his having taken more pains to find out the truth than I have, but the contrary. " Mr. Gilford once said, ' that while I was sitting over my gin and tobacco-pipes I fancied myself a Leibnitz.' VOL. II. Q 2ii6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1828). He did not so much as know that I had ever read a metaphysical book: was I, therefore, out of complai- sance or deference to him, to forget whether I had or not? Leigh Bunt is puzzled to reconcile the shyness of my pretensions with the inveteracy and sturdiness of my principles. I should have thought they were nearly the same thing. Both from disposition and habit, I can axs/(in>' nothing in word, look, or manner. I cannot steal a march upon public opinion in any way. My standing upright, speaking loud, entering a room grace- fully, proves nothing ; therefore I neglect these ordinary means of, recommending myself to the good graces and admiration of strangers, and, as it appears, even of philo- sophers and friends. " Why ? Because I have other resources, or, at least, am absorbed in other studies and pursuits. Suppose this absorption to be extreme, and even morbid — that I have brooded over an idea till it has become a kind of substance in my brain ; that I have reasons for a thing which I have found out with much labour and pains, and to which I can scarcely do justice without the utmost violence of exertion (and that only to a few persons) : is this a reason for my playing off my out-of-the-way notions in all companies, wearing a prim and self-complacent air, as if I were 'the admired of all observers?' or is it not rather an argument (together with a want of animal spirits) why I should retire into myself, and perhaps acquire a nervous and uneasy look, from a conscious- ness of the disproportion between the interest and con* viction I feel on certain subjects, and my ability to AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1828). 227 communicate what weighs upon my own mind to others ? If my ideas, which I do not avouch, but suppose, lie below the surface, why am I to be always attempting to dazzle superficial people with them, or, smiling, delighted at my own want of success ? " In matters of taste and feeling, one proof that my conclusions have not been quite shallow or hasty, is the circumstance of their having been lasting. I have the same favourite books, pictures, passages, that I ever had ; I may therefore presume that they will last me my life — nay, I may indulge a hope that my thoughts will survive. This continuity of impression is the only thing on which I pride myself. Even Lamb, whose relish of certain things is as keen and earnest as pos- sible, takes a surfeit of admiration, and I should be afraid to ask about his select authors or particular friends after a lapse of ten years. " As to myself, any one knows where to have me. What I have once made up my mind to, I abide by to the end of the chapter. One cause of my independence of opinion is, I believe, the liberty I give to others, or the very diffidence and distrust of making converts. I should be an excellent man on a jury. I might say little, but should starve ' the other eleven obstinate fellows ' out. I remember Mr. Godwin writing to Mr. Wordsworth, that ' his tragedy of Antonio could not fail of success.' It was damned past all redemption. I said to Mr. Words- worth that I thought this a natural consequence ; for how could any one have a dramatic turn of mind who judged of others entirely from himself? Mr. Godwin 228 A.UTOBIOGBAPHY (1828). alight be convinced of the excellence of his work ; but how could he know thai others would beconvinced of it, unless by supposing thai they were as wise as himself, and as infallible critics of dramatic poetry — so many Aristotles sitting in judgment on Euripides! "This shows whypride is connected with shyness and reserve : for the really proud have not so high an opinion of the generality as to suppose that they can understand them, or that there is any common measure between them. So Dryden exclaims of his opponents with bitter disdain — Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive. I have not sought to make partizans, still less did I dream of making enemies ; and have therefore kept my opinions myself, whether they were currently adopted or not " To get others to come into our way of thinking we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow in order to lead. At the time I lived here formerly, I had no suspicion that I should ever become a volumin- ous writer ; yet I had the same confidence in my feelings before I had ventured to air them in public as I have now. Neither the outcry for or against moves me a jot: I do not say that the one is not more agreeable than the other. •• Not far from the spot where- 1 write I first read Chaucer's 'Flower and Leaf,' and was charmed with that young beauty, shrouded in her bower, and listening with ever fresh delight to the repeated song of the AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1828). 229 nightingale close by her. The impression of the scene, the vernal landscape, the cool of the morning, the gush- ing notes of the songstress — And ayen metliought she sang close by mine ear — is as vivid as if it had been of yesterday, and nothing can persuade me that that is not a fine poem. I do not find this impression conveyed in Dryden's version, and therefore nothing can persuade me that that is as fine. I used to walk out at this time with Mr. and Miss Lamb of an evening, to look at the Claude Lorraine skies over our heads, melting from azure into purple and gold ; and to gather mushrooms, that sprung up at our feet, to throw into our hashed mutton at supper. " I was at that time an enthusiastic admirer of Claude, and could dwell for ever on one or two of the finest prints from him hung around my little room — the fleecy flocks, the bending trees, the winding streams, the groves, the nodding temples, the air-wove hills, and distant sunny vales — and tried to translate them into their lovely living hues. People then told me that Wilson was much superior to Claude : I did not believe them. Their pictures have since been seen together at the British Institution, and all the world have come into my opinion. I have not, on that account, given it up. I will not compare our hashed mutton with Amelia's ;* but it put us in mind of it, and led to a discussion, sharply seasoned and well sustained, till' midnight, the result of which appeared some years after in the 'Edinburgh * In Fielding's novel. He refers to" the visit which Mr. and Miss Lamb paid to Winterslow in 1809. AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1828). Review.'* Have I a better opinion of these criticisms on thai account, or should I therefore maintain them with greater vehemence and tenacio ? Oh, no; but both rather with less, now that they are before the public, and it is for them to make their election. •• It is in lookii g bach to such scenes that I draw my consolation for the future. Later impressions runic and go, and serve to fill up the intervals; but these arc my standing resource, my true classics. If I had few real pleasures or advantages, my ideas, from their sinewy texture, have been to me in the nature of realitii 1 if I should not be able to add to the stock, 1 can live by husbanding the interest. As to my speculations, there is little to admire in them but my admiration of others; and whether they have au echo in time to come or not, I have learned to set a grateful value on the past, and am content to wind up the ac- count of what is personal only to myself and the imme- diate circle of objects in which I have moved, with an act of easy oblivion, And curtain-close such scene from every future view. " For myself I do not complain of the greater thick- ness of the atmosphere as I approach the narrow house. I felt it more formerly, when the idea alone seemed to suppress a thousand rising hopes, and weighed upon the pulses of the blood. I remember once, in par- ticular, having this feeling in reading Schiller's 'Don * In the Paper 'On Madame D'Arblay's Wanderer,' in the i;< view for 1 : L5. AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1828). 231 Carlos,' where there is a description of death, in a degree that almost stifled rne. At present I rather feel a thinness and want of support; I stretch out my hand to some object, and find none ; I am too much in a world of abstraction ; the naked map of life is spread out before me, and in the emptiness and deso- lation I see Death coming to meet me. " In my youth, I could not behold him for the crowd of objects and feelings, and Hope stood always between us, saying, 'Never mind that old fellow!' If I had lived, indeed, I should not care to die. But I do not like a contract of pleasure broken off unfulfilled, a mar- riage with joy unconsummated, a promise of happiness rescinded. " My public and private hopes have been left a ruin, or remain only to mock me. I would wish them to be re-edified. I should like to see some prospect of good to mankind, such as my life began with. I should like to leave some sterling work behind me. I should like to have some friendly hand to consign me to the grave. " On these conditions I am ready, if not willing, to depart. I shall then write on my tomb — Grateful and Contented. " But I have thought and suffered too much to be willing to have thought and suffered in vain " 4 J.".2 CHAPTER XV1IL (1829-1830). The las' > of William Hazlitt — 'Life of Napoleon,' vols, iii. and iv. — Pecuniary < 1 i (Hotilties connect nl with the work — Oontril nit ions to tlie ' Edinburgh Review,' 'New Monthly Magazine, 9 and ' Atlas ' — TtXos. Mr. Eazlitt removed, about 1827, from Down Streel to 40, Hall- Moon Street, Piccadilly; and here he lodged, when in town, during a couple of years. It happened, when the MS. of the second volume of 'Napoleon' was almost ready for the printer, some burglars, who had got at the back of the premises through Shepherd's Market, tried t«> break in, and put Mr. Hazlitt into a great state of terror. He posted off the next morning to the Atlas office with his MS., and begged that it might be taken care of till the printer wanted it ; and he had not even then, when the danger or alarm was all over, and his treasure was secure, quite overcome his excitement. I owe this anecdote to a itleman who became acquainted with Mr. Hazlitt towards the close of his life, and who was an eye-witness of his arrival, MS. in hand, at the newspaper-office. To another friend, whom he met with the adventure fresh in his mind, he said, " You know, sir, I had no CHANGES OF QUAKTERS — ANECDOTES. 233 watch, and they wouldn't have believed I had no watch and no money ; and, by G — , sir, they'd have cut my throat." His industry never flagged. He was unceasingly occupied. His health was by no means re-established, and his spirits were sadly indifferent ; but he went on, in spite of every obstacle, with the activity and continuity of a beginner. In 1829, he shifted his quarters from 40, Half-Moon Street, to 3, Bouverie Street, Fleet Street, where he occupied (with his son) a first floor. There was an alarm of fire while he was here, and the business was to get their pictures away — the copies of Titian and the ' Death of Clorinda.' He was cross with my father (ill-health improves nobody's temper) for being so cool ; but he himself did nothing but act the bystander with great success. They were tempora- rily deposited, till the danger was over, at the Sussex Coffee-House over the way. At Bouverie Street he wrote numerous papers in the Atlas, two or three in the '• New Monthly,' one or more in the Examiner, and two in the ' Edinburgh Review '— Flaxman's ' Lectures on Sculpture ' and Wilson's ' Life of Defoe.' The latter is in the ' Review ' for January, 1830. Lamb, in the postscript of a fetter to Wilson, Nov. 15, 1829, says : — " Hazlitt is going 'to make your book a basis for a review of De Foe's novels in the ' Edinbro'.' I wish I had health and spirits to do it." It seems that it was his greatest wish to make a paper 234 THE 'LIFE OP NAPOLEON' COMPLETED. on Bulwer's novels in the ' Review,' and he spoke upon the subject to Jeffrey, and, after his retirement from the editorship, to his successor, Mr. Napier. .Hut there was a difficulty fell and Intimated, in connection with the proposal, both by Jeffrey and Napier. Mr. Ilazlitt could never learn what it was; but he had to give up the notion. He regretted this the more, inasmuch as he had read ' Paul Clifford,' and been pleased with it ; and he was anxious, as Mr. I'atmore has it, to "get the job," if it was only to furnish him with a motive for going through the others. He was now bringing to completion his Magnum Opus, which, since his strength had begun visibly to decline, after that telling illness of 1827, he was fondly solicitous of seeing off his hands and in type. The finishing touches were put to the third and fourth vo- lumes at the latter end of 1820, under the roof of Mr. Whiting the printer, of Beaufort House, in the Strand ;* and the second and concluding portion of the ' Life ' was at length launched safely in 1830. The sale of the former volumes had been very inconsiderable, and the publica- tion of the remainder did not greatly help it on, I am afraid. It came after Sir Walter's, and did not go off at ill well. But the author's chief aim was not present gain so much as posthumous identification with a subject, which he considered, as time went on, would grow in interest, r and would be judged, as it deserved. * Perhaps, after the alarm of fire at Bouverie Street, he thought the MS. safer at Mr. Whiting's. PECUNIARY EMBARRASSMENT. 235 I have understood, however, that he was to have had for the copyright a considerable sum (500Z.), of which he received only a portion (140?.) in a bill, which, when the affairs of Messrs. Hunt and Clarke became hope- lessly involved, was mere waste paper. Mr. Hazlitt was dreadfully harassed by this disap- pointment. To him, as to most literary men, especially where there is sickness and growing incapacity for ap- plication, a sum of some hundreds of pounds was of the utmost moment, and the loss of it entailed the greatest possible inconvenience and personal worry. I have no inclination to go into the painful details, and I shall merely mention that the pecuniary crisis, which Mr. Hazlitt had hoped to avert, was accelerated by a knavish accountant, introduced to him (in ignorance of his real character, doubtless) by Mr. Hone. Mr. Haz- litt's strength and spirits were completely shattered by this deplorable and shameful affair. He removed in the beginning of 1830 to 6, Frith Street, Soho, and there he w r as now threatened with a return of his old enemies, dyspepsia and gastric inflammation. His early friends, the Eeynells, took leave of him to go over to Havre, where they had arranged to settle ; and he was then poorly, and under the care of a M. Sannier. Tins was in June. There is a letter from Lamb to the first Mrs. Hazlitt, dated June 3, 1830, respecting a suggestion she wished made to my grand- father through Lamb, on a point in which the unhappy circumstances inspired her with the deepest motherly interest and anxiety — her son's establishment in life. 236 lamb's mediation asked. It has never been printed, and I may therefore in- sert it : — [June 3, 1830.] "Deab Sakah, " I named your thought about William to his father, who expressed such horror and aversion to the idea of his singing in public, that I cannot meddle in it directly or indirectly. Ayrton is a kind fellow, and if you choose to consult liiin, by letter or otherwise, he will give you the best advice, I am sure, very readily. I "have no cloulf that Mr. Burners objection to interfering was the same with mine. With thanks for your pleasant long letter, which is not that of an invalid, and sym- pathy for your sad sufferings,* I remain, " In haste, " Yours truly, [Chakles Lamb.] " Mary's kindest love. " Mrs. Hazlitt, " At Mr. Broorahead's, " St. Anne's Square, Buxton." The "thought" was that William should go with Mr. Braham the singer, and that he should adopt the profession. But his father's insuperable repugnance to the choice of any line of life lingered with him till the ].i-i: he wanted to see him a gentleman, and to be able to leave him independent of the world. In the course of the summer, my grandfather grew * Mrs. H. was beginning to labour under frequent and severe attacks of rheumatism. DEATH OF ME. HAZLITT. 237 weaker and worse, and the services of Dr. Darling and Mr. Lawrence were volunteered. Still he was able to think and write a little. He composed a paper on ' Personal Politics,' in view of the then recent deposi- tion of Charles X. and the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty in France. It was something, he thought, to have been spared to witness that. The possibility of their recal occurred to him. " Even then," he wrote, " I should not despair. The Revolution of the Three Days was like a resurrection from the dead, and showed plainly that liberty too has a spirit of life in it ; and that the hatred of oppression is ' the unquenchable flame, the worm that dies not.' " The end was near. He had struggled with death DO through August and a part of September, and seemed to live on by a pure act of volition. But he was sink- ing. He asked those who were with him to fetch his mother to him, that he might see her once more. He knew that he was going fast. But his mother could not come to him; she was in Devonshire, and heavily stricken in years. As he lay there, on his dying bed, he mentioned to Lamb, who was by, that William was engaged to Kitty,* and said that the idea gave him pleasure. One Saturday afternoon in ..September, when Charles Lamb was in the room, the scene closed. He died so quietly that his son, who was sitting by his bedside, did not know that he was gone till the vital breath had been extinct a moment or two. * Miss Catherine Reynell. They were married June 8, 1S33. -38 DEATH OF MR. HAZLITT. His last words were : " Well, ['ve had a happy life." In my grandmother's handwriting I find this con- temporary memorandum : — c< Saturday, 18th September, 1830, at about half-past four in the afternoon, died at his Lodgings, No. 0, Frith Street, Soho, William Hazlitt. aged 52 years, five months, and eight davs. *• Mr. Land). Mr. "White, Mr. Hessey, and his own son were with him at the time." In a letter written by a friend to his sister in Havre, on the following Tuesday, there is a reference to the loss which his acquaintance, Ins son, and literature had sustained on that 18th of September, 1830. " Of the events which have occurred here since your departure," Mr. W. H, Reynell writes, "none will asto- nish you more, or at least affect you more, than the death of poor Hazlitt ; though the uncertain state in which he has been for the last two months ought to have prepared his friends for the worst. It appears, how- ever, from all accounts, that his son has entertained a very different opinion, or at least caused a very different opinion to be entertained. Jlis lather died on Saturday, and on Friday William told me that he was much better; and even on the following day (the day he died) gave out that he was in no danger, but that he had something in his mind, which would kill him if he did not dispel it. I hear that Mr. Law r rence and another medical man were present, besides Dr. Darling, who had been attending him throughout, and who, they think, had not treated him judiciously. Mr. Hone THE EFFECT UPON LAMB. 239 called in Broad Street on Saturday afternoon to inform me of the melancholy event. My father will be very much shocked to hear of the departure of his old friend so suddenly." Talfourd observes : — " Hazlitt's death did not so much shock Lamb at the time, as it weighed down his spirits afterwards, when he felt the want of those essays which he had used period- ically to look for with eagerness in the magazines and reviews, which they alone made tolerable to him ; and when he realised the dismal certainty that he should never again enjoy that rich discourse of old poets and painters with which so many a long winter's night had been gladdened, or taste life with an additional relish in the keen sense of enjoyment which endeared it to his companion." So, t\vo years before the Reform. Bill his spirit as- cended. If such things might be, would that it had been vouchsafed to him to see the forced concession of the first instalment of that claim, of which the second is overdue as I lay the pen down ! 240 CHAPTER XIX. His friends and acquaintances — The Lambs, the Hunts, the Repiells, the Montagus, the Procters, &c. — Personal recol- lections. The main thread of my narrative lias comprehended occasional allusions to the persons with whom my grandfather, in his time, was intimate, or at least ac- quainted. I have referred already to his early know- ledge of Coleridge and \Y< >rdsworth, of Fawcett and Northcote, of the Lambs, the Stoddarts, and the Hunts. I heartily wish that I had more to tell of one of these, of Fawcett, the "friend of his youth;" but all that I have been able to collect respecting his relations with that excellent and accomplished man I have brought together in another place. The character of some of Mr. Hazlitt's opinions on politics, art, and letters, and his stanchness in them, was unfavourable to the formation of many life friendships. He was accustomed "to think as he felt, and to speak as he thought;" and he therefore could not expect to get on very well in a world, which subsists a good deal by paraphrase. N HIS FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES. 241 But tlien, taking in 1823 a retrospective view of the circle in which he had moved, he found that he did not stand alone in the severance of such ties, for he says : — " I have observed that few of those whom I have formerly known most intimately continue on the same friendly footing, or combine the steadiness with the warmth of attachment. I have been acquainted with two or three knots of inseparable companions, who saw each other ' six days in the week,' that .have broken up and dispersed. I have quarrelled with almost all my old friends (they might say this is owing to my bad temper, but they have also quarrelled with one another). What is become of that ' set of whist-players,' cele- brated by Elia in his notable ' Epistle to Eobert Southey, Esq.' (and now I think of it — that I myself have celebrated), 'that for so many years called Admiral Burney friend ?' They are scattered, like last year's snow. Some of them are dead — or gone to live at a distance — or pass one another in the street like strangers ; or if they stop to speak, do it coolly, and try to cut one another as soon as possible. Some of us have grown rich — others poor. Some have got places under government— others a niche in the 'Quarterly Beview.' Some of us have dearly earned a name in the world, whilst others remain in their original privacy. .... I think I must be friends with Lamb again, since he has written that magnanimous letter to Southey, and told him a piece of his mind ! " I don't know what it is that attaches me to Hone so much, except that he and I, whenever we meet, sit VOL. II. K 242 Till: HONTAGUS — TAYLOR THE PLATOKIST. in judgment on another Bel of old friends, and ' carvi them as a dish tit for the gods!' There was Leigh Hunt, John Scott. Mrs. Xowllo, whose dark raven locks make a picturesque background to our discourse; Barnes, who is grown fat, and is they say married; Rickman — these had all separated long ago, and their foibles are the common link" that holds us together. .... For my own part, as I once said, I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about. • Then,' said Mrs. Xovello, ' you will never cease to be a i bilanthropist.' .... "I sometimes go up to Montagu's, and as often as I do, resolve never to go again. I do not find the old homely welcome. The ghost of friendship meets me at the door, and sits with me all dinner-time. They have got a set of fine notions arid new acquaintance. Allusions to past occurrences are thought trivial, nor is it always safe to touch upon more general subjects. Montagu does not begin, as he formerly did every five minutes, ' Faweett used to say' — &c. " That topic is something worn. The girls are -grow n up, and have a thousand accomplishments. I perceive there is a jealousy on both sides. They think I give myself airs, and I fancy the same of them. Every time I am asked 'If I do not think Mr. Washington Irving a very fine writer?' I shall not go again till I receive an invitation for Christmas Day, in company with Mr. Listen. "I once met Thomas Taylor the Platonist at George Dyer's chambers, in Clifford's Inn, where there was no PORSON — BARRY CORNWALL. 243 exclusion of persons or opinions. I remember he showed with some triumph two of his fingers, which had been bent so that he had lost the use of them, in copying out. the manuscripts of Proclus and Plotinus in a fair Greek hand ! Such are the trophies of human pride! I endeavoured (but in vain) to learn something from the heathen philosopher as to Plato's doctrine of abstract ideas being the foundation of parti- cular ones, which I suspect has more truth in it than we moderns are willing to admit. " I saw Porson once at the London Institution, with a large patch of coarse brown paper on his nose, the skirts of his rusty black coat hung with cobwebs, and talking in a tone of suavity, approaching to condescen- sion, to one of the managers. "We had a pleasant party one evening at Barry Cornwall's. A young literary bookseller [Oilier ?] who was present went away delighted with the elegance of the repast, and spoke in raptures of a servant in green livery and a patent lamp. I thought myself that the charm of the evening consisted in some talk about Beaumont and Fletcher, and the old poets, in which every one took part or interest ; and in a consciousness that y we could not pay our host a better compliment than in thus alluding to studies in which he excelled, and in praising authors whom he had imitated with feeling and sweetness. "It was at Godwin's that I met with Lamb, with Holcroft, and Coleridge, where they were disputing fiercely which was the best — man as he was, or man as -1! BIABTIN BUBNEY. — PHILLIPS. he is to be. '(Jive me,' said Lamb, ' man as he is not to l> V This saying was the beginning of a friendship be- tween as which I believe still continues." So he wrote in 1823, before lio had seen Elia's letter to the Laureate, which so pleased him. lie thought Lamb "the worst company in the world out of doors, for this reason, that he was the best within." Of Lamb's circle, the Wednesday-evening men, Martin Burney (a nephew of Madame D'Arblay) was nearly the only one with whom lie associated on any intimate footing. Burney, who had stood sponsor to his son in 1814, had rooms at one time in Fetter Lane. Colonel Phillips was among Martin's visiting set, and my grandfather, too, to a limited extent. My grandfather disliked Phillips latterly, for he fancied he was some sort of spy or agent of the government. There are a few allusions to him in Lamb's correspon- deuce. He was in the Marines in his younger days, and was present when Captain Cook fell. His capacity for disposing of pots of porter and glasses of spirits and water was prodigious; but he lived to be ninety. Mr. Hazlitt said of the Burney family: ''There is no end of it or its pretensions. It produces Avits, scholars, novelists, musicians, artists, in 'numbers numberless.' The name is alone a passport to the Temple of Fame. Those who bear it are free of Parnassus by birthright. The founder of it was himself an historian and a musician, but more of a courtier and man of the world than either " GODWIN — LEIGH HUNT. 245 At one time Godwin and he were pretty intimate, and some letters (which can no longer be found) passed between them. Yet he had a very indifferent opinion of Godwin, and spoke of him slightingly to others as a mere author. Godwin thought that his 'Answers to Vetus ' were the best things he had written, and that he " failed altogether when he wrote an essay, or any- thing in a short compass." He first made the acquaintance of Leigh Hunt on visiting him at Horsemonger Lane Gaol, in 1813. He had seen him before, but this circumstance brought them together. In his ' Autobiography,' Leigh Hunt says : " Even William Hazlitt, who there first did me the honour of a visit, would stand interchanging: amenities at the threshold, which I had great difficulty in making him pass. I know not which kept his hat off with the greater pertinacity of deference — I to the diffident cutter-up of Tory dukes and kings, or he to the amazing- prisoner and invalid who issued out of a bower of roses." My grandfather observes somewhere : — " I prefer [Leigh] Hunt's conversation almost to any other person's, because, with a familiar range of sub- jects, he colours it with a totally new and sparkling lighlt, reflected from his own character. Elia, the grave and witty, says things not to be surpassed in essence ; but the manner is more painful, and less a relief to my own thoughts. " Leigh Hunt once said to me — ' I wonder I never heard you speak upon this subject before, which you - I i JolIX BUNT — BONE. :n to have studied a good deal.' I answered, ' Why. we were qo1 reduced to that, that I know of.' "He (Mr. Hunt) once I u-e; ik fasted with Mr. Dyer (the raosi amiable and absent of hosts), when there was no butter, no knife to cul the loaf with, and the teapot was without a spout. My friend, after a few immaterial ceremonies, adjourned to Peel's Coffee-House, close by, where he regaled himself on buttered toast, coffee, and the newspaper of the day (a newspaper possessed some interest when we were young); and the only interrup- tion to his satisfaction was the fear that his host might suddenly enter, and be shocked at his impertinent hos- pitality."* At one time of his life, while Mr. John Hunt, Leigh's < I der brother, lived in London, Mr. JEazlitt was at his house at Maida Hill night after night. There was a solidity and thoroughness about John Hunt which was peculiarly congenial to him ; and perhaps in Leigh Hunt himself he saw and resented a superiority of deport- ment, better company manners — accomplishments of which he happened, from accidents of education, to pos- 38 a rather indifferent share. John Hunt and William Hone were very intimate, and Mr. Hazlitt often met him there. Hone became a great admirer of Hunt, who was a capital talker, and both in mind and person was quite a man of the old school. There is a portrait of Hunt, as the Cen- turion, in West's picture of the Centurion and his ♦This incident v urged by Mr. Leigh Hunt in his k A.bb< 4'- Breakfast.' THE REYNELLS, ETC. 247 Family. The Hunts were related by marriage to West. There is also, or was, a small drawing in pencil of Hunt, as a child, taken by West, it is believed, in America, before his settlement in this country. Hunt is represented in this dressed in the costume of the time. I do not know whether the picture is still preserved. Another house at which he visited (more sparingly in later years) was Basil Montagu's, in Bedford Square. Montagu was a son of Lord Sandwich, and enjoyed a lucrative post in the Court of Bankruptcy. Mr. Hazlitt admired Mrs. Montagu's conversation, and used to repeat what he heard at that house else- where, particularly at the Reynells', in Broad Street, where he often went after leaving the Montagus'. He lived at one time in a house in Gloucester Street, Queen Square, where Mrs. Skipper and her daughter (afterwards Mrs. Basil Montagu and Mrs. P ) used to reside formerly ; Mr. Montagu and Mr. P lodged under her roof. Mr. Hazlitt entertained an unfeigned re- spect for Mrs. Montagu, and I believe that he thoroughly r elished and enjoyed the society of Mrs. P , then Miss Skipper, who inherited a fair portion of her mother's talents and conversational powers. The friendship of Lamb and his sister, Procter and the Montagus, the Reynells and the Hunts, had its value and use, without question, in contributing very im- portantly to strengthen Mr. Hazlitt's interest in life latterly; but if I were to name the person whose in. timacy, in my own opinion, was of the greatest service 2 18 PATMORE I I i;i: an. to him from L820 to L830, I should name Mr. Patmore. There was a striking intellectual inequality between the two, and it was this very inequality which cemented the union— an onion which, after all, it is not so dill i- cult to understand. Mr. Bazlitt tolerated Mr. Patmore, till lie liked him. The episode which is related in the ■ Liber Anions " brought th«m more cl< - -< -1 \ together than before; and T cannot help feeling and saying, that I believe Mr. 1 'at more to have entertained at bottom an honest respect and regard for one whose familiar re- lations with himself were assuredly something not to be Looked hack upon with regret. I have heard it remarked thai he seldom appeared to such great advantage as when he was dressed to go somewhere, where he thought it necessary to stand upon a little punctilio; as, for instance, when he dined at Mr. Curran's. lie had not a very favourable opinion of Curran, how- sr. He says of him : " he was lively and animated in convivial conversation, but dull in argument ; nay, averse to anything like reasoning or serious observation, and had the worst taste I ever knew. His favourite critical topic- were to abuse Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and ' Romeo and Juliet.' .... He and Sheridan once dined at John Kemble's, with Mrs. Inchbald and Mary "Wolstonecraft, when the discourse almost wholly turned on love What would I not give to have been there, had I not Learned it all from the bright eyes of Amaryllis (?) and may one day make a 'Table-Talk' of it." KEATS — BYRON — SCOTT. 249 Of Keats my grandfather was a strong admirer, and he thought highly of his ' Endymion ' and his ' Isabella.' As for the persecution with which he was hunted to so early a grave, it was characterized by Mr. Hazlitt as it deserved to be, and ever since has been. He was severe upon Byron on account of the sources of his poetry being (in his estimation) traceable to Byron's passionate nature — his being in a rage with everybody. And he censured Lamb, because Lamb evinced an undue sympathy with the low classes. Yet in both these respects he was himself peculiarly vul- nerable and open to criticism. He always spoke with admiration and respect of the author of ' Waverley.' He said he feared that Gait's ' Sir Andrew Wylie ' would sicken people of him ; and he mentioned to Northcote that some one had been proposing to form a society for not reading the ' Scotch Novels.' He discriminated between Scott as an author and as a man. " Who is there," he once asked, " that admires the author of ' Waverley ' more than I do ? Who is there * that despises Sir Walter Scott more ? ■ The only thing that renders this mesalliance between first-rate intellect and want of principle endurable is, ih&i such an extreme instance of it teaches us that great moral lesson of moderating our expectations of * No wonder that he should shun contact with one of the originators of the Quarterly, with the friend of Blackwood, and with the projector of that highly respectable and temperate organ, the Beacon ! 250 8COTT \- \ MAN AM» A WB1TEB. human perfectioD and enlarging oui indulgence for human infirmity." Northcote told him plainly that it was because Scott had made a fortune by his writings that he was angry at his poverty of spirit. Northcote said to him : "Mister ilazlitt. you are more angry at Sir Walter Scott's success than at his servility." But Mr. Ilazlitt stoutly repudiated this imputation. Hi said t li.it in- hated the sight of the Duke of Wel- lington " for his foolish lace;" but there was something to be admired in Lord Castlereagh, instancing his gallant spirit and hisj^we bust. He often alludes to Scott, and lias a character of him in the ' Spirit of the Age.' He says somewhere : — "We met with a young lady who kept a circulating- library and milliner's shop in a watering-place in the country, who, when we inquired for the 'Scotch Novels,' spoke indifferently about them, said they were so diy she could hardly get through them, and recommended us to read ' Agnes.' We never thought of it before, but we would venture to lay a wager that there are many other young Ladies in the same situation, and who think 'Old Mortality ' dry. " Those who see completely into the world begin to play tricks with it, and overreach themselves by being too knowing Fielding knew something of the world, yet he did not make a fortune. Sir Walter 8cot1 has twice made a fortune by descriptions of nature and Character, and has twice lost it by the fondness for ©dilative gains A bookseller to succeed in hi- THE WAVERLEY NOVELS — COBBETT. 251 business should have no knowledge of books except as marketable commodities In like manner a pic- ture-dealer should know nothing of pictures but the catalogue price, the cant of the day. Should a general then know nothing of war, a physician of medicine? No ; because this is an art, and not a trick. " If put to the vote of all the milliners' girls in London, 'Old Mortality,' or even the 'Heart of Mid- Lothian,' would not carry the day (or at least not very triumphantly) over a common Minerva Press novel ; and I will even hazard another opinion, that no woman liked Burke. Mr. Pratt, on the contrary, said that he had to ' boast of many learned and beautiful suffrages.' " He frequently dined at Haydon's, in Lisson Grove North, on Sundays, and took his little boy with him, generally speaking. It was a resource, if he did not happen to be going to the Reynells' at Bayswater, or to the Hunts', at Maida Hill. He would say to his little boy, after breakfast, as a way of introducing his intentions, " Well, sir ; shall we go and eat Haydon's mutton ?" and his little boy, ten chances to one chance, would say, " Yes, father ;" and so they would go. Mr. Hazlitt was not intimate with Cobbett. " The only time I ever saw him," he says, " he seemed to me a very pleasant man, easy of access, affable, clear- 4 headed, simple and mild in his manner, deliberate and unruffled in his speech, though some of his expressions were not very qualified. His figure is tall and portly. He has a good, sensible face, rather full, with little 252 NOLLE K KNS — ELPHINSK I N E. grey eyes, a hard Bquare forehead, a ruddy complexion, with hair grey, or powdered; and had on a scarlet broad cloth waistcoat, with the flaps of the pockets hanging down, ;is was the custom for gentlemen-farmers in the last century, or as we see it in the pictures of members of parliament in the reign of George I. I certainly did not think less favourably of him for seeing him." My grandfather met Mr. Nollekens the sculptor only once, and then at Mr. Northcote's. " He sat down on a low stool (from being rather fatigued), rested with both hands on a stick, as if he clung to the solid and tangible, had an habitual twitch in his limbs and motions, as if catching himself in the act of going too far in chiselling a lip or a dimple in a chin; was lolt- upright, with features hard and square, but finely cut, a hooked nose, thin lips, an indented forehead ; and the defect in his sight completed the resemblance to one of his own masterly busts. He seemed, by time and labour, to have ' wrought himself to stone.' Korthcote stood by his side — all air and spirit — stooping down to speak to him. The painter was in a loose morning- gown, with his back to the light ; his face was like a p; ile fine piece of colouring, and his eye came out and glanced through the twilight of the past, like an old eagle from its eyrie in the clouds." Once he met Elphinstone, who wrote the mottoes to the ' Rambler,' first published eight-and-twenty years before he was born. He says : " We saw this gentleman, since the commencement of the present MRS. COLEBROOKE — Mc CLEERY. 253 century, looking over a clipped hedge in the country, with a broad flapped hat, a venerable countenance, and his dress cut out with the same formality as his ever- greens. His name had not only survived half a cen- tury, in conjunction with that of Johnson, but he had survived with it " He knew Mrs. Colebrooke, Colonel Colebrooke's widow, slightly — who did not at that time ? — 'and in- terested himself in her unfortunate case. He wrote to Mr, F , who was then editor of the ' Examiner,' and asked him to insert a statement in that paper. I do not know what F.'s reply was, but Mr. Hazlitt was much vexed at it, and remarked that Mr. F was the sort of man, he thought, who would take you at a disadvantage if he could. He wrote back to him, coming to Broad Street to do so, and Miss Reynell was deputed to seal the letter for him. My mother was by at the moment, and she heard him say of F , that he was the best political paragraph-writer we had, meaning to imply that he was nothing better. But this was forty years ago. Mr. F. will forgive this allusion, I hope. Among his acquaintances was Mr. McCleery, the printer, who preceded Thomas Davison in Whitefriars, where Messrs. Bradbury and Evans now are. McCleery lived in Stamford Street, Blapkfriars, and had hot suppers, which partly formed my grandfather's induce- ment for favouring the house with his society. I will not be positive that McCleery 's two daughters, who were handsome girls, and accomplished, did not con- 254 in ME, Mil M.P. tribute something to the attraction. My lather recol- lects very well accompanying Mr. Bazlitl iliither. Another was Mr. Joseph Eume, of the Pipe Office, who, like the Iirynells, resided at P>ays water. Mr. JIume had a daughter s Angeles LO^ > - £S UC SOUTHERN REGIOMAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 376 358 •^